


Won't Let This City Destroy Us

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Arson, Brief mention of knives, Brief reference to theft/mugging, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Graffiti Art AU, Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, References to Depression, references to antidepressants, references to blood and mild injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21705502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: Dan fell into this world that he doesn't belong in completely by accident. He doesn't do art - he isn't capable. Instead he writes how he's feeling in huge, obnoxious, poorly painted letters. Pink letters, at that.Some people have Twitter. Dan has a can of spraypaint.In which Dan works in a café by day and is a graffiti artist by night. And he's hopelessly in love with his best friend Phil. Of course.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 155
Kudos: 273





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oof. Ok I know I have like two incomplete wips on the go and that's just genuinely Unacceptable but hey, here's what I wrote for nanowrimo this year!
> 
> This is honestly poorly researched and super super self indulgent, and I'm trying not to be sorry about that idk. I like it, I think. I hope you do too.
> 
> Shout out to the wonderful Andrea, who not only encouraged me to post this but beta read it for me, too. Thank you <3 <3
> 
> Title is from The City by Patrick Wolf. That whole album has been a giant inspiration for this fic so I highly rec

At four am, Dan stands on a rickety fire escape and watches an old building burn.

  
The timbers crack like gunshots even from this distance away, air thick with black smoke. It's a bonfire night smell that somehow thrills him despite the danger, reminds him of hot dogs and fireworks and being a little kid in a coat that was always too big, holding tight to his mum's hand in the crowd.

  
Now he stands and watches the way the flames lick at the brickwork, greyish dead of night shot through with orange and red, heat rolling off the structure in waves. There's something strangely beautiful about it, something forbidden about watching the building get slowly eaten by fire, everything beyond the flames becoming blackened and ugly.

  
In his normal, everyday life, Dan isn't in the habit of watching buildings burn down. It's something he'd hurry past with his eyes averted, like car crashes or ambulances pulled up to the front of crowded buildings. But in the hours between late-night and morning he exists in a limbo, a shadowy in-between place, the plastic Halloween witch mask pulled down over his own keeping him safe. 

  
He isn't Dan right now - he's someone else entirely.

  
"This is, like, the third time this month," Nix says. Their eyes are bright over the dark material of the scarf that covers most of their face. "It's always abandoned buildings."

  
"It's crazy," Dan says, just as a distant sound of a siren gets closer, the noise ripping through the night air like a scream, swallowing his words. 

  
The alleyway far below is thrown into sharp relief by the blue fire engine lights - the police are probably on their way too, but Dan knows everyone's safe. He and Nix had slipped into the only inhabited building close by, Dan's mask firmly on, hood up, just that one dark strip of Nix's face visible over their scarf as they'd elbowed the fire alarm in the lobby before the pair of them had got out of there fast. They'd stood on the other side a few minutes before and watched a sleepy line of people straggling through the fire doors in coats and hats, moving away to a safe distance.

  
"We should go," Nix says. Dan can't take his eyes off the fire for a second, at the smoke blooming like black flowers in the inky sky. "Hey. Before the cops show up. Come on."

  
Pulling the uncomfortable rubber of his mask back down over his mouth, Dan follows them.

  
-

  
About half an hour later, they've taken refuge under a canal bridge near Deansgate station. It's overlooked by office buildings, but Dan highly doubts there'll be anybody around at this time. The train tracks cut a stripe across the still water, another red brick bridge in plain sight, less than twenty metres away. This is risky, but Dan knows that the first train isn't til five. He has time. 

  
Nix certainly thinks so. They're sitting slumped on the floor, back up against the wall, scuffed trainers pointing at perfect forty five degree angles either way. 

  
Dan wishes he was confident enough to be so relaxed. Not that he's ever relaxed when he's painting - the fear of getting caught and arrested always loud in the back of his head, bells jangling somewhere in his mind in the place where his anxiety sits - but this is worse than usual. This is a deliberate risk, painting here in the open when the train is due to come by any minute, any second. His hands shake and his lines aren't straight. Imperfect as usual.

  
"I think I get it," Nix says, just as Dan's swearing under his breath, paint can hissing in his hand.

  
Hmm?" He says, absently, voice muffled by his mask.

  
"The arsonist," Nix says, taking a sip from their water bottle, face masked by their hood. Dan doesn't try and peek at what they look like - anonymity is the cornerstone of their friendship. "I think I get it."

  
Dan pauses, shakes the can of paint. "So you're gonna switch from paint to like, property damage?"

  
Nix scoffs.

  
"No," They say. "I just - they wanna make a mark, I think. Same as us." They pause. "Only, like, they destroy and we create, I guess."

  
" _You_ create, you mean," Dan corrects them, under his breath.

  
Nix is actually a talented artist - like, honestly, genuinely, they're amazing. Dan's seen the stuff they rustle up with a dog-eared stencil and ten seconds of time before someone rounds a corner, and it's beautiful.

  
As for Dan, mediocre would be a compliment, as far as he's concerned. He fell into this world that he doesn't belong in completely by accident. He doesn't do _art_ \- he isn't capable. Instead he writes how he's feeling in huge, obnoxious, poorly painted letters. Pink letters, at that.

  
Some people have Twitter. Dan has a can of spray paint and a punk kid who roasts him every chance they get. And so they should, to be honest.

  
"Art's subjective," Nix says.

  
Dan just makes a noise of disagreement in the back of his throat. He's sweating in his mask, even though his hands are practically purple with cold. He shakes his hoodie sleeve back in a practiced gesture to look at the time. Fifteen minutes until the first train and one word to go - he can do this.

  
When he's done, he shoves the paint can in his bag anxiously and breathes a sigh of relief. He steps back, stumbling on the cobbles, and Nix cranes their neck to see what he's done.

  
_I don't know what I'm doing_ , the letters say, feet high and dripping, big enough to be seen from the offices and the train tracks.

  
"Blunt, straight to the point," Nix says. "I like it."

  
When Dan first met Nix, he thought that edge to their voice was sarcasm, a mocking tone, that they thought he was stupid for even trying. Now after a year he knows that they just tend to sound like that, and they're rarely ever mocking.

  
"Come on, then, old man," They say, hopping nimbly to their feet and patting him on the arm. "Let's go."

  
Except, of course, when they are.

  
'Sorry," Dan says, falling into step behind them just as the train rumbles by, horn sounding bleakly in the darkness. "Forgot you had school today."

  
"It's half term, arsehole," Nix retorts, but there's no heat in their words. "Don't you have work or something depressing?"

  
"Nope," Dan says, shoving his icy hands into his hoodie pockets. "Day off. Gonna sleep in all day."

  
-

  
Dan hasn't stayed out this late with Nix in a long time.

  
Lately he's really been trying to sleep enough to give his meds that kickstart they need to actually stop him from being miserable. He's got into the habit of rushing off at midnight like Cinderella so he can jump on the last bus out of town - but tonight he got that thrill in his bones that he only ever experiences at night - the feeling of endless possibility, that the streetlit world is a book he can flip through the pages of at will.

  
Today he ends up getting home just as cold fingers of daylight are creeping across the sky, ready to steal the night away. The clouds are pink and the air smells fresh and beautiful, Dan's breath escaping his mouth in little white clouds as he walks briskly along to his apartment building.

  
When he crawls into bed he almost whimpers with appreciation for the cool covers and the soft pillows, out like a light before he can even work himself into a properly comfortable position.

  
-

  
He wakes abruptly hours and hours later, as if someone had just whispered in his ear. His throat's dry and his joints ache and he can just feel that he needs a shower, dried paint flaking on his hands. Even so, he turns and grins into his pillows. He's off work today. The whole day, just doing whatever he wants. Doing nothing, if that's what he feels like.

  
Days off, he thinks, are a gift. 

  
It takes him a second to realise that he didn't just wake up so suddenly of his own accord, no - his phone must've buzzed on his bedside table, because Phil has called him.

  
Yawning, he slips out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom, feeling woozy and heavy, somehow, like his limbs are made of lead. He takes his phone with him and calls Phil without even looking, resting his phone on the sink where the bar of soap usually goes, shell-shaped indents cradling it, Phil's name on the black screen while Dan looks himself in the eye in the mirror.

  
He sees a guy who needs to sleep more, a guy who needs to shower and shave, a guy who didn't get enough sun in the summer just gone.

  
Phil picks up on the fourth ring.

  
"Tell me I didn't wake you up," He says instead of hello, voice echoing in the bathroom. Dan smiles involuntarily before he catches sight of how smitten and stupid he looks. It forces him to turn away and lean against the sink, eyes on the puddle of black clothes he left in the bathroom doorway when he got in this morning.

  
"You didn't wake me up."

  
"Shit, I'm sorry," He says. "But also, like, were you up til 4am again, because -"

  
"Reddit calls to me," Dan says, laughing when Phil makes an exasperated noise. "I love how you still sound surprised after all this time."

  
"You need sleep," Phil admonishes. "But also your batlike sleeping hours are part of you and as your friend I'm, like, duty bound to love everything about you. Even the fact that you can't sleep like a regular human."

  
Dan's breath catches in his throat, cheek hot under his cold fingers at just the idea of Phil loving him. He really is pathetic.

  
"I don't deserve you," He says, voice as neutral and nonchalant as he can manage. "What's up, anyway?"

  
"Nothing important, it's ok," Phil says, hurriedly. "You should get some more sleep, it's alright-"

  
The battered watch still on Dan's wrist tells him it's quarter past one, and he feels wide awake - or as wide awake as he's capable of feeling after spending the better part of the night running around the city vandalising bridges.

  
"I'm awake now, it's ok. Honestly, I'm about to shower and everything."

  
"I feel bad now," Phil says. "Just wondered if you wanted to come over to the gallery. I'm bored."

  
"That's it?" Dan says, laughing, even though his stomach feels light and fluttery at the thought of him being the first person Phil would call if he just wanted to be with someone.

  
"Yeah."

  
"I'll come over," Dan says. Of course he does. Phil could suggest that they abseil down a skyscraper and Dan would be there as soon as possible if it meant spending time with him. "Gimme an hour?"

  
-

  
Dan loves the city in autumn. 

  
He loves the falling leaves, the crunch of them when they dry up on the pavement, shuffling through fading green and gold and orange. He loves the smell of it all, crisp and sharp, always the distant scent of a bonfire in the air. He loves the fact that it's cold enough to wrap up, that he can wear a coat buttoned all the way up at last. Summer clothing was never Dan's vibe, not really.

  
The tram glides into town like a boat, carving a pathway through the suburbs, scrubby patches of grass struggling through trackside gravel quickly making way for high-rise buildings, the odd blocks and shapes of the city skyline visible up ahead. Dan's morning commute is usually way busier than this - ordinarily he'd be shoved up against a window right now with his face uncomfortably close to a stranger's armpit - but it's well into the afternoon and all of the commuters are already at work. He'd managed to get a window seat all to himself, and he sits there listening to some soothing piano playlist, thinking about Phil as the cityscape drifts by.

  
It's pathetic. He knows it is. It's pathetic to feel so lonely for so long, to isolate himself, then latch onto the very first person he makes friends with outside of work. Or - well, he guesses Phil counts as a colleague, maybe - maybe even his boss, which is a deeply worrying thought that he drives from his mind the moment it appears.

  
Dan has another, not-Phil related job - he works in a cafe. It's a cute place, with flowers on the unvarnished wooden tables, a haven for taking cute photos of coffee for Instagram or tentative first dates. Countless customers leaving their twined hands on the tabletop, catching Dan's helpessly yearning eyes when he's collecting cups and plates.

  
It's a nice place to work. It pays the bills. Dan has friends there, gets endless free cups of coffee throughout the day and has a boss that doesn't really care if he ends up wearing ripped black jeans to work when they're the only thing that's clean. 

  
It's weird. When he'd got the job, he'd been struggling so much with his mental health that he'd hated the place and resented every moment he spent in there. He'd got through the hours on autopilot, sharing enough kind words and smiles with his coworkers and the customers that they didn't think he was an awful person, and that was that. He hadn't actually attributed his abject misery to depression at the time - he hadn't even viewed himself as miserable. Like, sure, he'd just got through a tough breakup, and he struggled to sleep and find happiness in small things like he'd once been able to, but he still smiled - he still laughed. He still got up every day and got dressed and made the commute into town.

  
As far as he'd been concerned, depression was when you couldn't leave the house, when you didn't take care of yourself properly, when you couldn't find it in you to eat or cook or have a shower. And he'd been managing to do all of those things, even though it'd felt like he was sloughing through thick mud, body aching with the effort of it all.

  
Somebody so productive couldn't be depressed, he'd thought.

  
He'd thought wrong, of course. After his diagnosis he'd tried therapy for a few months, then graduated to medication. 

  
After that, everything had been easier. Not immediately, or anything - Dan hadn't just woken up one morning with a wide smile on his face, feeling like he could take on the whole world after taking one measly little pill. No, it hadn't been quite so immediate, but the oppressiveness of his anxiety had abated, just enough. 

  
It took a while, but he didn't lie awake at night, hot and sweaty with fear and thoughts of death, a gaping maw ahead of him waiting to swallow him whole. 

  
He started enjoying things again, things he hadn't ever noticed not enjoying anymore. 

  
His battered old keyboard, a treat leftover from his uni days, had become like an albatross around his neck, he'd realised - guilt and shame gripping him whenever his eyes caught on how dusty it had become with lack of use. One day he realised how much the weight had lifted. He wiped the keys with a discarded sock and switched it on, playing something easy, a finger exercise that he recalled from memory, like it'd been waiting in his hands the whole time.

  
He'd already known Phil by then, once he'd started to feel better. 

  
They've been friends for ages. Because yeah, Dan is exactly that kind of tragic homosexual who becomes fatefully, painfully attracted to a close friend. The only way he's mixed it up a little is that Phil's actually gay too - actually gay and deeply, deeply unlikely to ever see Dan as anything more than his best friend.

  
That's fine. It really is. It's fine because he and Phil just clicked, right from that very first day. Not like love at first sight, because Dan isn't sure he believes in that. 

  
Dan had been looking for some extra money, something to keep him topped up until his usual payday, and he'd answered an advert looking for people to work evening events at a tiny gallery in the Northern Quarter. When he'd gone around there, intimidated by the fancy looking old fashioned building, sandwiched between high end bars and coffee shops, it'd been Phil who'd answered the door.

  
He'd been wearing an utterly terrible blue shirt and jeans combination, glasses all fogged up, apologetic and charming. He ran the gallery, it turned out. Dan had been nervous and stupid and tongue tied at first, but after about fifteen minutes they'd been talking about Pokémon like they'd been friends for years.

  
And that had been it, really. Something deep inside Dan had just sighed out an _oh_ , as though everything that had previously happened just started to make sense.

  
Phil's just - he's just so similar to Dan in so many ways, but also so annoyingly, endearingly _different_. The guy hates cheese, for God's sake. He drifts in and out of conversations like clouds between skyscrapers. He loves plants but is somehow woefully inept at keeping them alive. He'll wear the most atrocious outfit combinations that'd have Dan rolling his eyes if it was literally anybody else, but somehow he pulls it off.

  
And he makes Dan laugh. He makes him laugh til his stomach hurts and his eyes are leaking.

  
So Dan's tragic and lovesick, alright. Sue him. 

  
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he slips his phone out of his pocket and opens his blog one handed.

  
_lunch with my crush_ , he writes, tagging it as _last night i saw a building burn down and now this_.

  
Oh yeah. His blog. He'd started it years ago, just a safe space online where he could be himself - awkward, queer, extra - without judgement. With acceptance, even. When he'd started running around with Nix at night the tone of the blog had shifted - not to mention the url - and he guesses it's an art blog now. Not that he classifies his own tragic spray painted messages as art - he just reblogs street art, beautiful pieces on street corners and under bridges.

  
One time a piece of Nix's had showed up on his dash. He'd desperately wanted to tell them, but he's understandably cagey about mentioning Tumblr to people. If people he actually knew followed him, he wouldn't be able to vent on there quite so honestly. Burning building stuff, you know.

  
His phone chirps a few moments after the post.

  
_you're mad_ , the message from tryingforamazing says, with a link to his own post below. 

  
Dan grins.

  
_only facts on my blog!!!!_ He sends. _how are u_

  
_thinking. i'm hanging w my crush today too_

  
_that's the relatable gay content babey_

  
_he plays the piano did i mention_

  
_no you didn't_ , Dan says. He thinks of his keyboard at home, his mediocre tinkering on the keys the last time Phil had come over to hang out. _i wish i played the piano_

  
_me too_

  
_get him to teach you_ , Dan says. _his hands on urs on the keys and all that jazz_

  
_STOP_ , Dan's friend says. Then, _i'll make a move when u make a move on ur guy_

  
Dan rolls his eyes to himself, turning his music up and slipping his phone into his pocket, just as the tram starts pulling into Victoria.

  
-

  
Phil meets him at the station. There's a chill in the air, wind blowing through the open doors, and Phil's all bundled up in a puffy jacket, gloves and scarf and everything. Dan feels colder just looking at him.

  
Except how he doesn't, because Phil's all hunched over, stray hairs from his quiff falling over his forehead as he sips from one of the Starbucks cups he's holding. He hasn't noticed Dan approaching him yet, too lost in his own world, people rushing past him like water - he's an immovable rock in the midst of the bustle. An island.

  
"Oh my God, thank you," Dan says, instead of hello, when he gets close enough for Phil to notice him and hand him the spare coffee. He's beyond used to the way that Phil's big eye-crinkling smile makes him feel like he missed a step downstairs - practiced enough to be able to take a sip of his drink without seeming too flustered, he hopes. "Pumpkin spice?"

  
"Mm," Phil says, nodding enthusiastically mid-slurp of his own. "I think they started doing them yesterday. Got you soy 'cause I couldn't remember if you were vegan or not this week."

  
His eyes are twinkling.

  
"Fuck off," Dan says, laughing and batting him on the shoulder.

  
They end up ambling out of the station without any real destination, drifting along amongst endless people who all seem to have places to be.

  
"So you were bored," Dan says.

  
"So bored," Phil says. "Nothing to do. And I think the new girl thinks I'm weird or something." When Dan makes a supportive noise of outrage, he explains, "I heard her and Carl talking. Except, like, when they saw me they stopped and it was awkward. Or I couldn't decide if it was _me_ making it awkward, like, in my head or if it actually was and they were talking about me-"

  
"I feel you," Dan says, sincerely. "Honestly me whenever I'm walking past a group of teenagers."

  
"Stop, I know right," Phil says, just getting it. "And they laugh!"

  
"The _laughing_ ," Dan says. "Oh my God. What's ever _that_ funny, you know?"

  
"Couldn't just be, like, your average love for life," Phil says, grinning at him. "Has to be something more sinister."

  
"Exactly."

  
Phil laughs. They end up pausing for a while by the cathedral to finish their drinks, perching by a tree that Dan remembers spilling cherry blossoms what feels like only a matter of days ago. Now the branches are all but bare, just a few browning leaves clinging on, sodden remnants sticking to the paving stones below.

  
It feels wonderful, somehow. Being able to sit there with Phil, bench a little damp against his jeans but his coffee hot against his palms, Phil talking about some installation that's being fitted in the gallery tomorrow in time for an event Dan's working at the weekend.

  
"It's, like, trees with lights," Phil's saying, enthusiastically. Dan absolutely cares about art - some of the stuff they have in the gallery truly blows his mind, makes him feel (if it were at all possible) more ashamed of calling his own tragic contributions to brick walls art. 

  
He cares about art, but it's possible that he cares about Phil's bright eyed excitement over it even more.

  
He ends up yawning, eyes watering, the kind of yawn that makes his whole body tremble, interrupting Phil mid-sentence.

  
"You need to sleep more," Phil says. It's said gently, fondly, exasperatedly. "Come on, let's eat. I'm starving."

  
They end up in a little cafe with tiny pumpkins on the tables, much to Phil's delight. Their knees have no choice but to touch on the table, and they order toasties and hot chocolates like little kids, laughing at nothing in particular like always. Being with Phil just makes Dan feel like that - like he's so light he could just float away, untethered. It's not something he's ever really felt before, and even though he tells himself he could get over it - that he _will_ get over it when Phil inevitably, eventually realises how Dan feels and doesn't feel the same - it's an addictive feeling.

  
Some people have gambling addictions, Dan thinks. Peri, the cook at the cafe, she's a smoker, disappearing outside for endless cigarette breaks during the day. 

  
As for Dan, he's quietly, desperately, awfully addicted to the way Phil makes him feel.

  
-

  
"He's never invited you to his flat?" Jess says, the next day at work.

  
Jess is lovely. She's adorable, Dan might go so far to say, a second year uni student who makes him feel weirdly fatherly, everything she says some kind of meme, some reference that thankfully he gets but simultaneously feels super old about getting.

  
She also probably isn't the best person to go to for crush advice.

  
"No," Dan admits, haltingly. It's a quiet morning in the cafe so far - for some reason Tuesdays usually are. Dan looks down at the red napkin he's meant to be folding so that it looks more aesthetically appealing, and gives up. "Is that weird?"

  
Jess exhales upwards so that her fringe flutters.

  
"I mean, like. Yes and no, I guess. Has he ever been to your place?"

  
Dan shakes his head.

  
"It's too far away," He explains. "Like, a whole ride away on the tram."

  
"Oh, that's alright then," Jess says, just as Peri ducks in through the bead curtain that separates the kitchen from the rest of the cafe. "What d'you think, Peri?"

  
"Robert Downey Jr isn't fit, you guys are weird," She says automatically, tying her apron behind her back.

  
"Not that," Dan says.

  
"Dan wants to know if it's weird that he's never been to his crush's house."

  
Peri blinks.

  
"You mean, like, lurking outside in the bushes?"

  
"Ha, yeah, obviously," Dan says, voice dripping sarcasm. "Like, just being invited around there, I guess. It doesn't matter anyway."  
Peri moves past the pair of them to the coffee machine, filling her mug with the sunflower painted on the side that was almost certainly a gift from her girlfriend. Everyone's lucky in love except Dan - or that's how it feels most of the time.

  
"Don't worry about it," She says, now haphazardly adding packets of sugar to her mug. "You're overthinking it."

  
"Have you _met_ me?" Dan says, laughing a little.

Peri raises her eyebrows over the rim of her coffee.

  
"Good point, well made," She says, and retreats back into the kitchen with her coffee just as a customer ambles into the cafe.

  
Peri's probably one of the coolest people Dan knows - not including Nix, of course. She just does whatever she wants and doesn't care what anybody thinks, and she shaves her head and has lines in her eyebrows and is absolutely covered in tattoos. When Dan had first met her he'd been more than a little terrified - her blunt way of speaking really got to him at first, him and his habit of anxiously taking everything a little too personally - but now he just thinks she's wonderful.

  
"What about you, anyway," Dan asks Jess, after she's made the customer his coffee. "And that library girl."

  
"Boyfriend," Jess says, glumly examining her fingernails.

  
"Ah, shit," He offers, sympathetically.

  
That's probably where he's headed with Phil, he thinks, as he's fetching disinfectant and wipes from the store cupboard to give the empty tables a bit of a spruce. He probably has a boyfriend somewhere, a painfully successful uni graduate who makes, like, six figures and goes for runs every morning and manages not to eat a share pack of Maltesers buttons to himself on a Friday evening.

  
Not that he's ever mentioned a boyfriend. And not that it'd matter so much if he had one, anyway. It's not like Dan's only friends with Phil because he hopes one day they'll end up together - even though he really, really hopes they will, in some alternate universe where Dan's romantically smooth and things actually go his way for once. 

  
Dan loves being friends with Phil, just the way things are - he just wishes there was a little more kissing involved, that's all.

  
-

  
The day drifts by in a haze of menial tasks to pass the time - Dan thinks maybe he cleans the front counter about twelve times, scrubbing away imaginary coffee stains. Speaking of coffee, he drinks so much of it that he feels like his teeth ought to be chattering.

  
It gets so quiet near to closing that he actually opens Tumblr on his phone, resting it on the bowl of packets of crisps on display on the counter.

  
The first thing that shows up on his dash is a black and white photo of a wall somewhere where someone's scrawled _love me/love me not_. He reblogs it wryly, just about resisting the urge to tag it as _mood_.

  
He has a couple of asks, one which reads _what do u mean u watched a building burn donwn????_ And another in a similar vein that says _you're really not gonna elaborate huh_. And another that makes him laugh because it says _u have a crush? whats her name?_

  
_Bold of you to assume i'm straight_ , he replies to the last one, grinning dumbly to himself.

  
He ignores the other ones, closing the app and checking his messages. Nothing from Phil - nothing from anyone, not that he's ever inundated with messages these days. Most of his friends live down south, and he feels like he alienated them all when he was dealing badly with his depression and just sort of gave up on messaging most people. He feels like there's no good way to slide into someone's inbox after a year-long silence and explain that you don't hate them and you never intentionally ignored them, it's just your brain got you down good and proper and you only just really clawed yourself out of it.

  
It really does feel like someone hit pause on a long period of his life, sometimes. Now everything's moving around him again and he isn't sure how to adjust. Especially now that it's autumn again. He thinks part of his brain subconsciously associates early sunsets with how terrible he felt years ago, each day a humongous effort to get through. The days closing in always makes him worry that he'll just somehow switch back to the way he used to be, medication or no medication. It hasn't happened yet, and he makes a conscious effort to find joy in the way the evenings are now, when the streetlamps start glowing beyond the cafe windows before his shift's even over.

  
Like on the journey home. He takes some leftover coffee in a to-go cup, says goodbye to Jess and Peri and huddles down into his coat, feeling cosy and warm despite the fact that his breath freezes on the air. He'd toyed with the thought of going to the art shop on the way home - he's running low on paint now - but he'd have to go a little further out of his way than he's prepared to when he feels this tired.

  
Last night after he'd finished hanging out with Phil, he and Nix had sat in the abandoned factory near Oxford Road train station and watched the world going by below. It's a beautiful old building, covered in paint in one way or another, graffiti even covering the giant old panes of glass in the lovely old fashioned windows. They'd intended to paint but had ended up just sitting there for a little while, talking, Dan's ugly mask pulled up over his mouth and nose so he could actually breathe.

  
It had been nice, but perhaps not the best idea when he had to be at work for eight the next day. Now he's so tired, tired down to his bones, and he has no intention of going out tonight. He has no inspiration anyway, nothing except daft thoughts of Phil and the usual _does he? doesn't he?_ monologue that runs under the rest of his thoughts like white noise.

  
He's ready to go to sleep. Beyond ready. When he was a kid the last thing he'd expected from adulthood was an evening shower and bedtime being the absolute highlights of the day.

  
_people who wanna buy art are mean_ , is the text he gets from Phil when he's finally safely on the tram, head resting against the cold glass as the city slides by around him.

  
_customers are demons_ , Dan replies.

  
When Phil replies a moment later with the purple devil emoji, he laughs a little to himself, slipping his phone into his coat pocket and risking closing his eyes.

  
Life really is brilliant sometimes, he thinks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna post this tomorrow but the election results knocked the wind out of me, so I edited this as a Nice Thing To Do in this terrible Tory world we live in
> 
> As ever this fic would not exist without careful proofreading from the lovely Andrea <3 an Angel
> 
> This chapter contains mentions of blood and mild injury, so please tread carefully if that's something that bothers you! <3

"You're getting better at this," Nix tells him, a few nights later.

  
It's so cold that Dan has his rubber mask pulled all the way down, gnarled halloween face obscuring his features and keeping him warm, for once - the wisps of synthetic grey hair that form the back of the mask falling down over his shoulders and tickling his neck.

  
"It's just words," Dan says, taking a second to look at his mediocre offering to the world.

  
_I want you to know me_ , it says, signed with a heart.

  
They're closer to Victoria station tonight, a gap between office buildings, close enough to the road that Dan can hear the whoosh of cars, a distant siren every so often making his heart clench in his chest.

  
Nix has kind of humoured him with their art tonight, freehanding an anatomical heart right next to his dripping letters in quick strokes of red and pink.

  
"Can't believe you did that from memory," Dan says, admiringly, just as they add the last line.

  
Then there's the sound of voices much too close for comfort, the crunch of broken glass underfoot. There's no time to stop and think - Nix is running, so Dan is too. He already scraped one of his knees climbing over the fence to get there and now he skins the other one clumsily clambering back across. 

  
Their chosen spot for tonight is close to the river. Dan likes painting there. It runs through the city like a ribbon, a vein, and the riverbank is under cover of trees, a place where most people hardly ever go. It's easy to get lost on the riverside path, easy to disappear into the gloom. They're less likely to be observed and followed down there, where the air is bitter with the tang of river water in the air, water and trees swallowing up the sounds of the city so it's like existing in a noiseless vacuum. A safe place.

  
Dan can barely believe that in just under a year a secluded riverbank with no streetlights has gone from a place he'd once avoid at all costs to a safe haven.

  
They stop running a few minutes later when they hit a bridge, Dan's trainers catching on uneven stones. He has a stitch in his side and his breath's coming in pained gasps, knees buckling as he leans against the old stonework.

  
"We didn't have to run that far," He wheezes, voice echoing across the water. "It was probably just people on a night out - Jesus _fuck_ , my knee hurts."

  
His legs are bleeding - he can feel the warmth of the blood soaking into his tracksuit pants.

  
"Gets us far away enough," Nix says. He knows they have more to lose than him when it comes to being arrested - not that he's sure if they would be. They've mentioned applying to art schools in the past, and he guesses a criminal record might look a bit bad on an application, even if the conviction is art related. "You ok?"

  
Dan's feeling his knees as best as he can through his pants, wincing. He yanks up his mask just so he can breathe, clouds in the air betraying just how unfit he is.

  
"Yeah, yeah, it's good," He says, not wanting them to think he's pathetic. He straightens up, adjusts his hood from where it'd fallen while they were running. "Let's go."

  
They follow the riverside path for a while, picking their way across rough ground and loose stones in the dark. It's a pleasantly clear night, moon swimming above them in the sky. It's not even black up there from out here - the sky's glowing orange with the light pollution from the city, all that noise and life bleeding into the air. The river rushes along below them, water dark as ink, only the occasional glow of a streetlamp floating indistinctly on its surface.

  
The river takes them back into the middle of the city, unlit windows of Harvey Nichols looming over them in the gloom. Sound has come back into the world now, beyond the crunch of their footsteps on the path - the whoosh of passing cars, squares of light up above, illuminated windows in a tower block. They slip off at the bridge and hop back onto the pavement - or hobble, in Dan's case - and Dan pulls his hood tight over his face so nobody sees his mask and freaks out.

  
"I should head off," Nix says, voice muffled. "Got an essay to finish."

  
"Jesus," Dan says, sympathetically. When he squints at his watch in the sepia streetlight it's to find it's gone midnight - he's just missed the last tram home. "Good luck with that."

  
"You gonna be ok?" Nix asks, dark eyes intent over their scarf. He can tell they actually care. They're a good kid, he thinks, warmly.

  
"Yeah, it's fine," Dan says, like he'd actually admit it if it wasn't. "My friend's..." He gestures, vaguely, in the direction of the cathedral. "He should still be awake."

  
Nix nods.

  
"See you around," They say, and walk off, shoulders hunched, pulling their bag tight onto their shoulder. They look so young for a moment, a little kid headed off to school. 

  
Dan looks away, not wanting them to think he's trying to see where they're going. He turns and clumsily pulls his mask off under his hood, staring at the rubber face clutched in his hand - the witch's nose and weird, red eyes. Then he shoves it in his pocket and calls Phil.

  
Normally he wouldn't - he _really_ wouldn't - but he knows that Phil spends the night at the gallery sometimes when he doesn't feel like travelling to get home. There's a flat tucked into the eaves of the old building, with a little bathroom and an old bed in a side room.

  
It's Phil's office, technically. When Dan had first gone up there, snooping around while Phil was being all managerial and businesslike on the phone, the fact that there was a bed up there had seemed so seedy and weird. Phil had guessed what he was thinking, pulling a face when he'd hung up the phone and saying something about how the flat belonged to the owner of the gallery, a guy called PJ.

  
"I didn't wake you up, did I?" Dan says as soon as Phil picks up, dimly aware of how the tables have turned.

  
"No," Phil says, unconvincingly. He makes a little throaty noise, like someone stretching in bed - it's a warm sound. Warmth and rest feel like distant notions when Dan's standing there on the side of the road, safe in the circle of light from a streetlamp, shuddering a little with cold. "No, no. You didn't. What's wrong? Is everything ok?"

  
"I'm fine," Dan says, embarrassed all of a sudden.

  
"Dan," Phil says, anxiously. "Where are you?"

  
"Near the cathedral, don't worry," Dan says quickly. "I was just wondering if you were at the gallery tonight."

  
"Yeah," Phil says. "Yeah, I am. Come over, do you need me to meet you?"

  
"No, no, it's fine. Are you sure you don't mind?"

  
"Don't be stupid," Phil says, sounding wide awake now. "Text me when you're outside."

  
-

  
Phil's waiting at the back door when Dan walks up the alleyway that leads to the back door of the gallery. He's wearing striped pyjama pants like an old man and a massive jumper that hangs down past his hips. He looks cosy and soft and wonderful.

  
"Get inside," Dan says, bustling him in. "You'll freeze to death out here like that."

  
When they're in the little hallway, door shut behind them, Phil reaches up and touches the side of his neck with cold fingers. It takes Dan's breath away, that one touch and the look on Phil's face.

  
"What's wrong? You're shivering."

  
"I just - I fell over and cut myself."

  
"Jesus, Dan," Phil says. He's still whispering, like they're telling each other secrets, fingers gentle on Dan's skin.

It's like the simple fact that Phil's touching him makes the pain dim, somehow, like it isn't so important anymore, not right then. The hallway's dimly lit and confusing, and Dan doesn't know if Phil takes a moment to stop looking at his mouth or if he's imagining it in the poor light.

  
The gallery's up one flight of stairs and Phil's office is up two. It takes the walk up there to realise that Phil's barefoot - that he'd been so worried about Dan that he'd come downstairs into the street with no shoes or socks on.

  
There's something unbearably tender about his feet, about his pale ankles as he walks up the stairs. He keeps looking back at Dan nervously all the way up, like he's worried Dan might've disappeared or something.

  
"It's ok, honestly," Dan says, when he follows Phil into the dark office. Light spills through the ajar bedroom door and Phil pushes it further open, leading him in. There's a lamp lit on a small table, casting golden light over the rumpled white bedcovers, sloping ceiling curving low. "I just didn't know what to do and - and I missed the last tram home."

  
"Where are you hurt?" Phil asks, fussing him around until he's sat on the bed. His knees and legs really hurt now, and it's not until he flexes his fingers that he notices he's grazed them too somehow.

  
"My knees," Dan says, too tired and hurt to lie. "I - I'm sorry about this. You were asleep, and -"

  
"Doesn't matter."  
  
  
"But-"

"I have a first aid kit around here somewhere," Phil says, pointedly loud, drowning out his protests. Dan just swallows and watches him hunting around, the broadness of his shoulders and the paleness of the back of his neck. Dan hates feeling this way - hates that every small inconsequential thing about Phil is enough to make him feel hot and stupid.

  
His bag's on the floor by his feet, and he's dimly aware that the can of paint's still in there. He'd wrapped it in a scarf on the walk back so that it wouldn't rattle around, but he's still worried about Phil noticing it somehow.

  
Not that Phil's paying any attention to his bag. He's bustling around, eventually producing a green first aid kit box from a drawer. He moves over to Dan and crouches down so he can look at Dan's poor knees, tracksuit pants torn. Phil touches Dan's shin first, hand firm in a way that makes Dan's mouth dry.

  
"Jesus Christ, Dan," Phil says. Dan can see that his fingertips have come away from his trousers with blood, dark in the poor light. "Where did you fall? Off a cliff?"

  
"Just - ah," He winces when Phil gently touches his knee with his fingertip. "Running for the tram. It was the last one home."

  
"Don't bother next time," Phil says. "Just come over here, I'm always here. Well, sometimes."

  
He looks up at Dan then, and Dan swallows. There's something terrible and intense about this whole situation, despite the pain he's in, something about how Phil's steadying himself with that hand on his calf, the fact that this is all happening in a bedroom. 

  
He watches the way Phil's eyelashes flutter in the lamplight and wonders what he's thinking, if his heart's beating anywhere near as fast as Dan's is. 

  
They look at each other for what feels like a long time. 

  
Phil coughs, standing up.

  
"You're gonna have to take those off," He says, not actually looking at Dan at all. There's a moment's pause after that, in which the words seem to exist in the room between them like bats, flapping around and bumping off the walls. Phil laughs, sheepish and bashful, and adds, "There really wasn't a good way to say that."

  
"You charmer," Dan teases, grinning at him. Even so, the thought of taking his tracksuit pants off boggles his mind a little. He stands up too then stalls, hesitating. "I'm gonna get blood on the bed."

  
"Don't be daft, you're not hemorrhaging," Phil says, but then encourages Dan to sit up and lays out a hoodie that he grabs from a chair. It covers precisely one percent of the bed, and the pair of them stand and look at it.

  
"Y'know what, I think it'll be ok after all," Dan says, jokes aside, his nerves getting the better of him. "If I just - I should get a taxi home and have a shower and-"

  
"Dan," Phil says. His voice is like a warm bath on a cold morning. "I'm first aid trained, will you just let me-"

  
"It's just a scrape, I'm - what're you doing?"

  
Phil's rummaging in the abandoned first aid box for a moment, rustle of plasters under his fingers, until he pulls out a little white rectangle that he tears open.

  
"Alcohol wipe," He explains, brandishing it like it's a weapon. When Dan just looks at him, he elaborates. "It'll dry up now if I don't use it. Single use wipes are bad for the environment, Dan. Don't you care about the turtles? Or the ozone?" His mouth twitches, mock-serious voice trembling with suppressed mirth. "Or the -"

  
"Jesus fucking Christ," Dan says, unable to do anything but laugh. He grabs a pillow off the pristine white bed and swings it half-heartedly in Phil's direction - he's laughing too by now. "You're so _lame_ , oh my God."

  
"Just take your pants off, loser."

  
"I bet you say that to all the boys," Dan says, but he does as he's told.

  
He didn't think he was particularly squeamish, but peeling the blood-soaked knees of his torn pants makes him wince, closing his eyes because he can't bear to look. When his legs are finally bare, trainers kicked off, he sits down on the bed and peers at his knees through squinted eyes.

  
"Jesus, that's gross," He says. "The skin's, like...ew."

  
"Don't," Phil says, grimacing. "I have to clean it, don't describe it."

  
"Bit late to be squeamish now. It's really gross," Dan says. He rests his fingers on one of the grazes, as gently as he can, and hisses in pain. "Fuck."

  
"Can you not," Phil says. He's rummaging in the first aid box again. "Hold still while I clean them up."

  
He kneels down this time. Dan awkwardly hunches over, covering his stomach with his arms. He's painfully aware of how tragic his legs are, sad and pale and hairy in the lamplight. He feels much too exposed, throat thick, tongue too big for his mouth.

  
He looks at Phil's hair and the line of his nose, and gulps when his hand touches Dan's thigh for a moment.

  
If someone had told Dan earlier that day that he'd finish the night in Phil's almost-bedroom with no pants on, he simply wouldn't have believed them. Then again, he also might have imagined a more enjoyable scenario than the nails-down-a-chalkboard sensation of having open wounds cleaned with an alcohol wipe. 

  
"You'll live."

  
"You sure?"

  
"Mm," Phil says, looking up at him for a moment. Dan's teeth are gritted with pain from the alcohol wipe, but something about that one brief look is enough to drain him of all tension. Phil looks away, reaching in the first aid box for something else. "I'd miss you too much if you didn't."

  
There are a thousand funny responses Dan could conjure up, but he just sits there, shuddering a little while Phil pats his damp knees with a clean tissue and applies soft dressings with tape.

  
"That's seriously gonna yank my leg hair off at some point," Dan muses, watching Phil secure the tape and prepare to tear off another length with his teeth. 

  
"Should've thought of that before you were running for the tram."

  
He fits the last bit of tape into place, then joins Dan on the bed. Dan looks down at their legs - Phil's in his old man pyjamas, Dan's bare and bruised.

  
"Thanks," Dan says, softly. More softly than he'd intended to, turning and looking at Phil.

  
"No problem," Phil says, warmly. "They must hurt like hell."

  
"It's fine."

  
They look at each other for a moment, quiet and soft in the warm little attic room. Phil looks wonderful in the lamplight - ethereal, almost, a creature too beautiful to be true. He isn't wearing his glasses and his eyes seem to be the only place the light doesn't reach - a shadow casting itself over his face in a stripe, his gaze dark and unknowable.

  
Dan's stomach feels light and jittery all the same, goosebumps rippling on his bare legs.

  
"I have spare pyjamas somewhere," Phil says, eventually. When his tongue darts out to wet his dry lips the light catches on the moisture there, making it shine. "We can, like, get pizza and watch TV."

  
And because Dan's stupid - because he shouldn't be allowed nice things - he says, "You know the way to a guy's heart, Lester."

  
Phil grins. It'd be a flirty grin if Dan was feeling dangerously delusional about his chances.

  
"Told you so," He says.

  
-

  
He doesn't know when he falls asleep, exactly, but when he wakes up it's slow, a relaxing return to consciousness. The duvet covering him is warm and soft, the pillows plush, and it's only when he happily shifts his legs that the ache and the jolt of pain bring him back to himself - back to exactly where he is and what happened last night.

  
When he dares to open his eyes it's to find Phil right there, sleeping soundly right next to him. His face is relaxed, eyelashes dark and long, bottom lip full and slack. Dan's no Edward Cullen, no fucking sir, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't look at Phil for a moment - at how he's curled in on himself, hands clutching his own arms like he's trying to give himself a hug.  
Then he forces himself to look away because like he said - not Edward Cullen.

  
It's too early to be awake, really, but Dan gently shifts out of bed anyway. He has work in a few hours, according to his phone, and Phil has important gallery manager stuff to do, no doubt. 

  
While he's asleep, Dan silently pads around the little attic flat.

  
There actually is a kitchen, which isn't something he'd ever noticed before. It's tiny, and there's another door in there that opens out onto a tiny little terrace with another set of stairs that lead down to the alleyway behind the gallery. 

  
Dan stands there for a moment, shuddering in the sudden cold, and breathes in the smell of the morning air. The autumn sky is pinkish white, sun new in the sky somewhere, and black specks of birds fly across far overhead. 

  
He can hear the plastic-on-plastic bang of a wheelie bin being shut suddenly, the rhythmic beep of a large vehicle reversing, someone whistling in the distance. After that his toes start to go numb on the floorboards so he eases the door shut to keep the heat in.

  
The kitchen is pretty much empty, but there are coffee granules and sweetener tablets, so Dan clicks the dusty looking kettle on, spoons coffee and clicks three tablets into an empty mug, then continues his exploring while the kettle hisses comfortingly.

  
He's just peering into the tiny shower in the bathroom to see if there's any soap when the floorboards creak.

  
"God, it's freezing," Phil says. His voice is deeper than usual, hoarse with sleep. When Dan joins him in the kitchen, the pair of them watching the kettle expectantly, he notices that he has that early morning look about him that all people get - the sort of papery facedness of it all, the way your eyes squint and your cheeks are pillow-creased and a little red and your hair just isn't sitting right at all. 

  
Dan thinks the early morning suits Phil down to the ground - especially when he yawns and stretches and Dan, dry-mouthed and vulnerable, can't help but catch a glimpse of hair and pale skin when his shirt rides up.

  
They end up taking their coffee back to bed - the bed acting like an island in the flat, a warm place where they can shimmy their legs back under the covers and cup their mugs close. Dan sips his coffee and scrolls through Instagram and gives Phil time to wake up properly.

  
Even if he hasn't ever woken up with Phil like this before, he knows that the guy isn't a morning person, not by a long shot. Predictably he's already downed his coffee when Dan's barely on his third sip, and clambers out of bed like a drunken giraffe to make another, all long limbs and bed hair. 

  
Dan can't help but smile when he's gone, just grinning inanely into his coffee cup. Life really does just give gifts, sometimes - that was something he'd discussed with his therapist back in the day - looking for the gifts that life gives us, however small they are.

  
This moment - this exact second, sitting in bed with a sweet cup of coffee, listening to Phil humming tunelessly in the tiny kitchen and knowing he'll be back any moment - this is definitely one of those gifts.

  
Phil says something as he's walking back that Dan doesn't quite catch.

  
"Hm?"

  
"I just keep thinking about what would've happened if I wasn't staying here last night," He says, dark eyebrows twisting in concern as he sits down, dangerously close to spilling his drink all over the sheets. "Like, worrying about it, I guess."

  
"Would've just got an Uber."

  
"Ah, right, yeah," Phil says, nodding. "Uber Medics, that new app where they patch up your bleeding legs."

  
Dan roll his eyes.

  
"I would've sorted that out at home."

  
Phil looks at him.

  
"If I say something, will you promise not to get mad?"

  
"Dunno," Dan says. "That's a stupid promise to make. You might say something really shitty."

  
"No," Phil says. Then he looks doubtful. "I don't think so, anyway. I just - you weren't running for the tram, were you? When you hurt yourself?"

  
Dan thinks of the paint can in his bag under the bed and his whole body feels like it got dunked in ice water. There's a moment when he could lie - when he could really lay it on thick with a story about Market Street and the uneven paving stones - but it's Phil, early morning Phil who tenderly covered his wounds last night, Phil who touched his neck in the darkened hallway like it all meant something.

  
So he shakes his head.

  
Phil doesn't even look surprised.

  
"You don't even run for the bus. Like, I know 'cause neither do I."

  
"Are you trying to call me out for my less than manly physique?" Dan says, trying to make it into a joke before he really feels too exposed.

  
"No," Phil says. "I like your physique the way it is, thanks." He says it so casually, so simply, but the colour's high in his cheeks. Dan swallows, feeling himself flush. Before his brain can even begin processing it, Phil continues. "I'm guessing, like, you can't tell me how you really hurt yourself."

  
Dan shakes his head again, after a moment's consideration.

  
"But it's nothing bad," He says, quickly, when he can practically feel the anxiety building behind Phil's furrowed brows. "I'm safe and I'm fine and I - I'm not in a gang, or anything."

  
"That leaves literally every other possibility, you know that, right?"

  
"I dunno," Dan says, trying for humour again. "I feel like being in a gang's probably the worst case scenario." He sips his coffee. "Like, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not about to get shot, or anything."

  
"Oh, well," Phil says, sarcastically. "That's alright then." He pauses, humourous note entirely gone from his tone, and adds, "I just don't want you to get hurt. Like, worse hurt. Although I don't care what you say, those cuts are nasty."

  
"Not deep, though," Dan says. "I'll get some cool scars out of it."

  
"Arsehole," Phil says, shaking his head, but he's grinning. "Just - if you ever need anyone again, you know I'm here, don't you? Even if I'm not, like, here," He gestures at the room vaguely. "I'll come and find you."

  
"Ok," Dan says. His voice sounds weak. He feels weak, knows he'll play this moment over and over again in his head for weeks - hell, for _months_.

  
"Promise?" 

  
There's something intense about the look on his face that makes Dan falter for a moment.

  
"Promise."

  
-

  
_feel bad_

  
tryingforamazing's response takes no time at all.

  
_whats up?_

  
_feel like i can't share everything w the guy i have a crush on_ , Dan says, frowning at himself as he types. _not because of him!! he's perfect!!! bc of me i guess_

  
There's nothing for a little while. Dan reblogs a few pictures, keeps one eye out on where the bus is going. He wouldn't normally waste his time getting the free bus across town when he can walk perfectly fine - except today he can't exactly walk perfectly fine at all, so Phil had walked him to the bus stop, their arms linked. 

  
Now Dan huddles in his window seat and turns to Tumblr to assuage his guilt at lying to Phil.

  
_i mean u shouldn't feel pressured to share everything_ , tryingforamazing says. _we need some mystery in our lives u know??_

  
_i guess_ , Dan says. He always does this - tells a Tumblr friend half a story about his own idiocy then feels unspeakably guilty when they take his side, even though they've only seen half of the cards. _it was just a weird situation. cant explain_

  
_no need to explain_ , they say. _hey, look_

  
It's a post with a gifset of puppies. Dan grins, watching it for a few seconds before he locks his phone and slips it back into his pocket.

  
-

  
He glides around work like a ghost that day.

  
Or he would glide, if he wasn't still hobbling everywhere. He'd showered at the gallery and Phil had managed to rustle up a nondescript dark pair of trousers and a shirt from a drawer somewhere ("PJ's," He'd said, apologetically, when he'd handed them over). He feels uncomfortable in a stranger's clothes - and that's without the pain he's in, his knees throbbing, muscles in his legs aching from that quick sprint last night.

  
He really should go to the gym, he thinks, glumly, staring down into the sink in the kitchen. They have extra staff on Fridays to compensate for the rush, which usually leaves one of them consigned to washing up hell for the majority of the day. Dan's drawn the short straw today, but he feels like it might've been tactical on Jess's part.

  
"You've hurt yourself," She says, her eyes big and sad like Bambi. "It's best if you don't do any running around today."

  
He likes washing up duty anyway, not that he'd admit it. Especially today. It lets him space out and drift and mull everything over.

  
He feels bad for not telling Phil the whole truth. It bothers him all day - like there's something eating away at his insides.

  
It's not that he thinks Phil would react badly, or hate him. Phil would probably be amazed, astounded - maybe a little bit worried, considering his reaction last night. But it feels like Phil's response isn't the point - it's the thought of making that leap, of sharing all of himself like that, like it's fine.

  
Like vulnerability doesn't scare the shit out of him.

  
It's not that he doesn't trust Phil, either. He does. But he's trusted people before and it didn't end well. Not that Phil's _people_ , not that he's anything like anyone Dan's ever known before, but the thought of it all going to hell terrifies him. 

  
The thought of handing himself over to Phil entirely, warts and all, only to end up losing him completely in the end? Yeah, no.

  
Love isn't ever gonna be easy for him, he thinks.

  
-

  
It's dark that evening when they're locking up. Dan only has his thin hoodie to keep the cold out - his winter coat across town in his flat. His headphones are in a tangle that he hadn't bothered sorting out on his lunch break, so now he walks down the street, dodging people heading home and picking at knots.

  
There's something promising about the way the city is at night. Dan thinks he felt that way before he even started painting. A thousand different smells of food drift on the breeze as he passes kebab places, curry houses lit up, strangers deep conversation in the windows.

  
Dan feels like he's in a dream. Even when he successfully untangles his headphones he just shuffles a playlist and lets his feet lead him on autopilot. It takes him a while to realise he's walking to the art shop, instinctively taking backstreet shortcuts that'll get him to the other side of the city quicker. It isn't lost on him either that the art shop is treacherously close to the gallery - he toys with walking past on the way to the tram. Maybe Phil will be there, maybe he'll -

  
He could close his eyes at the memory of Phil touching him, at the look of concern on Phil's face about him being hurt. There's a dreamlike quality to his memories of the night, maybe partly because of his tiredness and the pain he's in. It feels fake, like it might've happened to somebody else.

  
The art shop's on a corner by a bus stop. There's an alleyway nearby with some of the most beautiful graffiti Dan's ever seen, and some of the most random - someone'd once sprayed Flowey from Undertale onto the brickwork. Dan doesn't know if it's still there - that had been when he and Phil had first met. They'd gone for coffee on a day off, maybe their first time hanging out as friends rather than gallery manager and lowly server, and Phil had dragged him along to the alleyway, tugging on his sleeve like a little kid leading someone to a toy shop, just to show him this gap between the buildings, this tiny little monument to street art.

  
Dan slips in through the door and breathes in the smell of wood and pencils, a smell he exclusively associates with this place. It's one of his happy places, amongst the clean sketchbooks and the neatly ordered paints.

  
Part of the fun is spending a good twenty minutes poring over everything in the place, every novelty eraser and cute greetings card designed by an independent artist. There aren't many people in today - there rarely are, unless it's a Saturday - and the place always has the pleasant silence of a bookshop, people pointing out things they love in excited little whispers that hiss through the air like a breeze through leaves.

  
The usual guy is sitting behind the counter, clicking around on a battered looking laptop. He's wearing glasses today, and just the sight of them makes him think of how Phil had looked when he'd answered the door last night, the unbearable vulnerability of his bare feet on the cold step. Dan tears his eyes away and keeps looking, pretending he wants to buy silky skeins of embroidery thread or beautiful notebooks or rolls of fabric.

  
That's another good thing about the art shop. It's big enough to lose yourself in. Dan's listening to Relaxing Piano Playlist 2000 or whatever this one is - the kind of playlist that makes his fingers twitch with wanting to go home and dig out his sheet music and try. There's something lovely about the flow of the soft piano notes in his ears as he walks around this utterly quiet, utterly peaceful space, with nowhere in particular to rush off to. 

  
Aimlessness is one of the true wonders of being an adult, he thinks. The ability to just have nowhere to be and nowhere to go. It's a freedom that gets lost sometimes in the drudgery of commuting and work and showering and sleep, on repeat over and over again, but when he takes time to notice it Dan really appreciates it.

  
Eventually he runs out of things to look at and trinkets to examine, and checks his phone before resigning himself to making his one purchase and leaving.

  
_stay safe tonight_ , a text from Phil says, with the glittery heart emoji. 

  
Dan freezes in the act of locking his phone. He'd been about to slip it back into his hoodie pocket, play the usual game of waiting a little while to reply so that Phil doesn't think he clings to his phone, waiting for a text from him.

  
Except it's Phil - Phil with the soft yellow-green-blue eyes, Phil who'd touched his neck last night, who'd tended to his wounds softly, tenderly, with real care.

  
So he swallows down a gulp of air, stupid treacherous heart beating faster at that one stupid emoji, a collection of pixels on a tiny screen, and replies.

  
_always_ , he says, with the black heart emoji, after a lot of deliberation. It's both sappy and on brand, and it makes him feel stupid and sweaty and teenage as he finally slips his phone back in his pocket and heads over to the counter at last.

  
"Hi," He says, pausing his music. He pulls an earbud out for good measure - forever anxious about mishearing someone or saying something stupid.

  
"Oh, hey," Art Shop Guy says, smiling. "Raspberry pink?"

  
"Raspberry pink," Dan agrees, nodding, even though the anxious part of him experiences an icy shard of fear at the thought of Art Shop Guy knowing the paint he buys, as though a colour preference makes him traceable somehow.

  
"Excellent choice as always," Art Shop Guy says, slipping off his stool and heading across to the cupboard behind the counter where the paints are kept behind a metal grate. "Ever think about branching out? I've got a really nice eggplant purple." He pauses, cupboard halfway open, keys jingling in his hand. "Why do Americans call it an eggplant? Like, it doesn't even look like an egg."

  
Dan just shrugs, grinning. He likes Art Shop Guy.

  
"No idea," He says. "But aubergine's just as weird."

  
Art Shop Guy tilts his head thoughtfully, nodding.

  
"Very true," He says. "How many today?"

  
"Er, three I guess," Dan says, fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. He has Apple Pay, of course, but paranoia has him paying for paint in cash.

  
Art Shop Guy sets the paint down on the counter and Dan hands him the money and shoves the cans in his rucksack.

  
"Nice doing business with you," He says, just before Dan leaves, pulling his hood up against the evening chill.

  
Dusk is grey and yellow, fading light and streetlamps flickering into life. People are spilling out of shops and across the pavement, and there's the smell of cigarette smoke in the air. Dan hikes his bag up higher on his shoulder and thumbs the volume button on his phone. Music makes him feel like he's in his own little protective bubble, a warm space in his head away from the cold autumn streets and the passing, laughing people. He cuts down next to the comic book shop automatically.

  
He's just gonna walk past the gallery, he thinks. See if the lights upstairs are on, think about the smell of Phil's aftershave that feels like it's been following him around all day, clinging to his nose like the scent of a particularly beautiful flower.

  
When he gets there, ducking around a group of people headed to a nearby bar for an early drink, there are no lights on in the gallery space itself - as much as he can tell from the street, anyway. He feels too weird about slipping into the alleyway behind the buildings to see if there's a sign of life in the flat above, so he just keeps walking, cutting down a different alley between a diner and a salon.

  
It's weird, but it's that alleyway that started it all. It feels like lifetimes and lifetimes ago now - the Halloween when he'd been headed home in tears. Before therapy and medication, he'd always been in tears one way or another, but that was when everything had just ended horribly with his ex, and his mental health had dipped even lower than he'd thought was actually possible.

  
He'd been walking down this alleyway, stumbling over the cobbles, head full of it all, buzzing with conversations and could-have-beens, when his foot had hit a can in the dark. The can had gone skittering and crashed into a silver bin nearby with a thunk. Dan'll never know what compelled him to go over there and investigate what exactly he'd kicked. He remembers how the can had looked though - that moment's stark in his head, vivid, like a particularly memorable panel in a comic book. A diagonal stripe of yellow streetlight had cut a line across it in the dark, nozzle thrown into sharp relief.

  
He'll never know what possessed him but he'd looked at the paint and then picked it up and slipped it into his rucksack.  
And that had been that, really. Everything had stemmed from that moment. He'd painted a particularly tragic missive on a wall near the Gay Village a few nights later, cut price Halloween mask pulled down over his face, hands shaking with terror.

  
_you killed me_ , that first offering said. 

  
Just thinking about it now actually makes Dan feel so embarrassed and stupid - how hurt he'd been over someone who really didn't deserve that much time or attention. Thankfully it's been painted over now, Dan's ill-advised pain daubed over with generic cream coloured paint.

  
He shudders now, walking through the alleyway, past the bins, chased by the ghost of the person he used to be - the person depression and circumstance made him into.

  
As he slips onto the tram home a short while later, feeling tired and aching for a shower, he smiles to himself, thinking about how far he's come.

  
He rests his head against the cold glass and feels the tiniest bit proud of himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas 💖💖 thank you so much for all the lovely feedback so far, you're all wonderful. Thanks to my wonderful beta Andrea as always 💖💖

Sometimes Dan thinks that if Phil wasn't the gallery manager, he'd just quit his serving job there.

  
Yeah, the gallery itself is in a lovely old fashioned building, yeah the space is really nice, clean wooden floorboards and white walls, the kind of minimalist modern nonsense Dan would want in a flat if it wasn't, like, grossly outside of his pay bracket. Yeah, seeing the artwork is cool, the events themselves are interesting, and nine times out of ten it involves seeing Phil in some form of evening wear that never fails to make Dan's heart skip a beat.

  
But the people? Hmm. Dan could take or leave them.

  
They click their fingers for more wine. They wave him over like he's a servant. They look at him like he's something just recently scraped off the sole of an expensive shoe.

  
And then there's the uniform, _God_. Scratchy black suit that's never fit right at all, white shirt, tie. Bow tie, depending on the fanciness of the event. Phil had bought him a clip on one, laughing, after the first time he watched Dan try and fail to tie the one he already had.

  
It's just a regular tie event tonight. Dan's tired, absolutely dead on his feet, the way he always is these days, and the smell of the wine under his nose is enough to make his stomach turn with the memory of a thousand legendary hangovers.

  
Tiredness always makes Dan feel oversensitive somehow. The muted lights in the gallery make him squint like there's a beam shining directly into his pupil, the regular sounds of people talking politely in low voices drilling through his skull and making him feel self conscious, stood alone in the corner in his ill-fitting suit.

  
He's not at his best, is what he's trying to say. He's feeling particularly weak and fragile, so watching Phil from across the room is enough to finish him off for good.

  
He looks wonderful. Of course he does. He's wearing some expensive looking embroidered dress shirt and trousers, smiling politely as people come over to talk to him. The only indication that he's nervous to be dealing with strangers is the way his fingers twitch awkwardly every so often.

  
Dan wonders if anyone else notices except him. He wonders if it's endearing that he notices - if it makes him a good friend for knowing Phil so well as to pick up on his nervous tics, or if he's just a total and utter creep masquerading as a regular person.

  
"Ugh," Phil says, at one point, when Dan's lurking in another corner with his tray of drinks. 

  
Technically he's meant to circulate the room, but at this point he's so tired he figures if people want free wine then they can come over and get it.

  
"Ugh," Dan agrees. He's afraid to look at Phil properly because he looks so good - embarrassed, almost, as if Phil knows he's been openly staring at him across the room for the past hour. "Wanna go home."

  
"God, me too," Phil says, shoulders slumping in a pantomime of tiredness. "And I actually am gonna go _home_ home, not..." He gestures at the ceiling, in the general direction of the flat. "'Cause I've got this microwave curry thing that goes out of date tonight and I'm not wasting it."

  
Dan laughs. 

  
"What?"

  
"Nothing," Dan grins. "It's just - you broke being an adult down to it's bare essentials."

  
Phil laughs.

  
"Shut up," He says, eyes sparkling.

  
Dan's about to say something else - something witty that'll make Phil carry on smiling like that, when someone in an intimidatingly sharp suit appears out of nowhere and starts asking Dan about what kind of wine he's serving. By the time he's cobbled together a response beyond _what they were selling at the closest shop_ , Phil's been swept off by a woman in a silky dress that catches the light as she moves.  
Dan stands there in his isolated corner and doesn't have the energy to pretend that he isn't watching Phil.

  
-

  
About halfway through the evening, they run out of wine.

  
This always happens - normally there's boxes and boxes of the stuff that Phil says PJ buys wholesale, and they can just duck into the drafty little supply cupboard and grab another bottle before people start complaining.

Not today though - the boxes are empty, and Dan and Sue, another server, stare at them in despair.

  
"Everything alright?" Phil asks, ducking into the cupboard. His presence has loomed so large in Dan's mind all evening that being close to him makes him feel like he's glowing, lighting up like someone flicked a switch. "Oh, shit, no wine."

  
"No wine," Dan agrees. "I can go and get some more, if you want. Won't take ten seconds."

  
"Are you sure?" Phil asks, eyes wide and anxious. "I should go. I should've checked and - I don't want to, like, _delegate_ to you like I'm your _boss_ or something, that's so gross, I-"

  
"It's fine," Dan says, soothingly, painfully aware that Sue's standing right there, gaze flickering between the two of them interestedly. "You go back out there, it's fine."

  
"Thanks," Phil says, and touches his arm for a fraction of a second, eyes warm and fixed on his, before he ducks back out of the room.

  
Sue raises her eyebrows at him, and Dan prepares himself for the worst.

  
"Are you and him...?"

  
"No," He says, firmly. He means it in the _he wouldn't be interested in me in a million years_ kind of way, but it sounds a little more like the _I wouldn't be interested in_ him kind of way, and Sue gives him a look.

  
"Alright," She says. "Hey, listen, can I go for the wine? I'm gasping for a cig, I can multi-task."

  
"'Course," Dan says. "Take the money out of the cash box."

  
He ends up slipping downstairs to go to the bathroom, figuring everyone's too busy discussing art to notice that there's nobody currently serving wine and nibbles. He's sighing, checking the time on his phone as he walks down the stairs, when he hears Phil's voice in the foyer below.

  
"It's bad," He's saying. "It's really really bad, Peej."

  
For a split second, Dan assumes he's talking about them running out of wine, and he's about to go down there and reassure him, remind him that this sort of thing happens all the time, and if people get really antsy Phil should remind them he's running a gallery, not a bar.

  
But then Phil says, "He looks so good. I'm so stupid."

  
Dan stops dead, hand on the cold banister, skin hot and prickling.

  
"Ok, ok, I know," Phil says. Dan can hear the pat of his expensive shoes on the floor as he walks up and down. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now. Like what am I, fifteen? I feel like a kid." Silence again. "No, no, I can't. He wouldn't - he _doesn't_ , trust me. Honestly, Peej."

  
Dan feels like he's been submerged in water. He's surprised he can hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

  
It's not like he didn't know that Phil didn't like him back - that Phil would eventually have his head turned by some cute guy. Dan knew that, he's known all along. But somehow knowing that and being faced with the cold hard reality of it, of standing here listening to Phil waxing lyrical about his mystery crush on the phone, it's not the same.

  
He feels hollow as he stands there. Numb and empty, stomach rolling with nausea.

  
"I'm gonna have to ban black tie events," Phil's saying as Dan turns to creep back up the stairs, all thoughts of going to the bathroom forgotten. "It's too much, I'm-"

  
Dan slips back into the main hallway of the gallery, leaving Phil's voice behind, his head jangling like someone had just picked him up and shaken him.

  
He's made such a fool of himself, he realises, as he walks back to his safe corner of the gallery like he's in a dream. He's been trailing after Phil with big stupid heart-eyes, his feelings blatantly obvious to anyone and everyone - probably even to Phil, too.

And a stupid part of him had really hoped that the feeling was mutual, that they'd somehow end up together one day, that at some point Dan would be able to bridge the gap between them with more than just a platonic hug.

  
He'd been wrong.

He'd expected to be wrong, but it still hurts.

  
He doesn't know how long he stands there before someone approaches him, a touch to his arm bringing him back into the room, the moment, all sounds flooding back.

  
"That was quick," Phil's saying.

  
It takes Dan a second to remember the wine.

  
"Oh, yeah," He says, blinking rapidly. "Er, Sue went. She wanted a smoke break." 

  
He forces out a smile that feels wrong on his face.

Phil just smiles back, as soft and lovely as ever. Just looking at him makes Dan ache.

  
They stand in silence for a moment, surveying the room. Dan's brain is buzzing. He knows he needs to get over this fast - knows that he needs to behave normally or Phil's gonna notice that something's wrong. He looks around the room at the people talking and laughing, barely able to focus anymore.

  
He wonders who the guy is. He's here somewhere, the guy so handsome that Phil wants to stop all black tie events. Probably someone in a really fancy suit, he thinks. Someone broad-shouldered and strong, someone with blue eyes, and -

  
"So, who's the guy?" Dan asks, trying to keep his voice as light as possible.

  
Phil frowns, confused.

  
"Sorry?"

  
There's a moment when everything in Dan is screaming at him to shrug and say oh, nothing, and change the subject entirely.

  
"I, uh. Sorry, I. Might've overheard you on the phone back there," He says, awkwardly. "I, um. Not on purpose, I was just - I needed the bathroom and you were, like, by the bathroom, I guess. I mean, you know where you were." When he summons the strength to look at Phil he's red in the face, blinking rapidly. "So I was just wondering who your guy is, that's all."

  
"I..."

  
"You don't have to say," Dan says, because he can't seem to find it within himself to stop talking. "I shouldn't have asked, I just thought - I was being nosy. Wanted to see how cute he was, I dunno." 

  
"Dan.”

  
"Sorry," Dan says. "I shouldn't have said anything."

  
They stand in silence again, Dan drumming his fingernails against the low table in front of him, staring around at the gallery space without really seeing it. He shouldn't have asked, he should've just left it alone, now he's made Phil feel awkward.

  
"You don't get it, do you," Phil says, after a moment, quietly. Dan expects him to launch into some well-deserved tirade about eavesdropping and respecting privacy, but when he looks at him Phil's just looking right back, colour high in his cheeks, expression open and vulnerable and - and desperate, almost.

  
"What?"

  
Phil laughs then, a little breath of air.

  
"I tell you everything, Dan," He says, with the air of someone explaining something painfully obvious. "If I had a crush on someone else, don't you think you'd know all about it?"

  
_Someone else_ , Dan's brain says, the words echoing between his ears. _Someone else, someone else_.

  
The penny drops.

  
"What?" Dan asks, thunderstruck, staring at Phil. "What?"

  
"Oh my God," Sue says, placing bottles of wine down on the table with repetitive thunks that feel like rocks falling on Dan's head. "It's so cold out there, oh my God. You owe me big time."

  
Dan's just staring at Phil. 

  
Phil's looking away, awkwardly fiddling with a loose thread on his cuff.

  
"I should, um. I need to speak to Darren," He says, to no one in particular, before he hurries off across the room.

  
"The fit guy was working again," Sue's saying, but Dan isn't listening. He's watching Phil cross the room, watching him pause to speak to somebody, smile falling back into place as he talks to them.

  
"Dan? Dan?" 

  
"Sorry," Dan says, vague and dreamlike. He’s dimly aware that it’s rude to just abandon Sue mid-conversation, but his brain’s buzzing – so he follows Phil across the room, resolving to apologize later.

  
Phil ducks out into the cool hallway, Dan hot on his heels, and when the door swings shut behind them it’s like a vacuum, all the sound sucked out of the hallway all of a sudden – just the two of them standing there, breathing too loudly in the empty space.

  
“I’m sorry,” Phil says, before Dan can say anything. He isn’t looking at Dan – he isn’t even facing him. He’s mostly turned towards the clinically white wall of the corridor, tantalising slivers of the side of his face all that Dan’s getting, his nose and his lips and the movement of his eyelashes when he blinks.

  
“What?”

  
“I’m sorry.” He turns then, wringing his hands. “I wasn’t ever gonna – I didn’t ever – this was _my_ thing, alright, my own stupid crush, and – and I wasn’t ever gonna bother you with it, I was just gonna – I dunno, just wait for it to go away, or – or find someone else, ‘cause – ‘cause it’s _you_ , you know, and you’re so – you’re so –“

  
"Stop," Dan says, moving forwards so he can grab hold of Phil's wrists, still his frantically moving hands. "Stop, ok, just stop." He looks at him then - really, properly, letting himself look at Phil's skin and his eyes and his frown, that particular frown that makes Dan want to reach up and smooth the lines away, replace all of that stressed energy with a smile. He swallows hard. "Bold of you to assume I don't feel the same way about you."

  
Phil stares at him.

  
"Shut up," He says, voice soft.

  
Dan laughs.

  
"You shut up," He says, grinning. "I - God, I've had a crush on you for so long. And, like - Jesus, I know, ok, I know _crush_ makes me sound like a kid-"

  
"Ok, but me too," Phil says, and he's smiling too. "But, like, I was so sure you wouldn't - like, please tell me you're not humouring me, or something."

  
Dan's about to lean in close and make some awful cheesy remark about _showing_ Phil that he's not humouring him when the door swings open behind them.

  
"Oh," A guy in a suit says. Dan drops Phil's wrists and the pair of them spring apart guiltily, Dan's face hot as he tries to compose himself into the very picture of professionalism in a matter of seconds. "Sorry, I was just looking for the bathroom."

  
"It's, er," Phil clears his throat. "Just down the stairs."  
They stand in silence while the guy walks down the stairs, footsteps echoing.

  
"We should get back in there," Phil says, guiltily.  
"What?" Dan says, touching his wrist again. His skin's soft there under Dan's fingers. "What, like - now? But - but..." He gestures between them.

  
"Oh, ok, I'll send everyone home just 'cause you like me back," Phil says, dryly. "I'm sure they'll all understand."

  
Dan sighs, but they hold hands for a second.  
"You're so responsible."

  
"Yeah, well," Phil says, pulling the door open and holding it so Dan can slip through before him. "You like me, so what does that say about you?"

  
He's smiling when Dan looks at him, and he can't help but laugh.

  
"I'm either an idiot or a man of taste."

  
"Oh, definitely the latter."

  
Phil instantly gets swept off by someone asking him something, leaving Dan standing there, reeling, feeling lighter than air.

  
-

  
"God, you suck," Dan says, when Phil calls him the next morning.

  
"What? Did I wake you up again?"

  
"No," Dan says. He has toast and coffee and an episode of Steven Universe, and now Phil's calling him. That's ten out of ten, right there. "I wanted to see you more last night. I dunno."

  
"So I suck?"

  
"Yeah," Dan says, and takes a bite of toast. "Everything ok?"

  
"Oh, yeah," Phil says. "I wanna get coffee."

  
Dan nods, forgetting for a second that Phil can't see him.

  
"Mm?"

  
"Like, today. But not friend coffee, you know."

  
"Right," Dan says. "What, you want me to argue? Throw biscotti at you? What?"

  
"Dan," Phil says, exasperated, but he's laughing. "God, you're an arsehole."

  
"Guess you have a crush on an arsehole, then."

  
"Guess I do," Phil says, and Dan has to close his eyes for a moment then, needing a second still to process it all. "I mean like a date. A coffee date. Me and you, getting coffee."

  
"Obviously," Dan says, already reaching over to turn the TV off. "When? Now? I can be in town in, like, half an hour." 

  
"I'm already here," Phil admits, bashfully. 

  
"I'm on my way."

  
-

  
It's such a weird situation to be in, because it's his instinct to wear something stupid and fancy, something expensive that Phil would be utterly unfazed by, but it's Phil. Phil's seen him in every situation. He's seen him looking ugly, so ugly that it's truly amazing he can feel anything romantic for Dan at all. They hung out once on a slow Sunday and Dan just put trainers on and threw a coat over his pyjamas to catch the tram. That's just how it is sometimes.

  
Phil knows him. That's the problem. It was stupid of him to be so openly ugly in front of someone he likes so much.

  
He just ends up throwing on a clean sweatshirt, plain black and inoffensive, and then absolutely dousing himself in deodorant and aftershave like a fourteen year old boy. He pulls on his most ripped jeans for the aesthetic and somehow manages to get his big toe caught in every single rip in the process, so by the time he's dressed he feels sweaty and stupid and ugly.

  
Then he gives up, pulls on his trainers and goes to catch the tram.

  
He gets off at Market Street. The city centre is bustling, great swathes of people enjoying their day off shopping, filling the streets and spilling onto the tram lines. Even so, Dan spots Phil immediately, texting up against one of the big Primark windows, some tacky Harry Potter display beyond the glass.

  
Dan feels like every word he could say is doomed to come out garbled and stupid.

  
He swallows, gathers all the courage that he ever felt like he had, and fights through the different currents of people to reach Phil.

  
"Hey," He says, stupidly, when he gets close enough.  
Phil looks up from his phone and beams, flushing pink. Dan thinks he's probably red in the face too.

  
"Hey," Phil says.

  
They're silent for a moment before they both end up laughing, awkward but companionable.

  
"Sorry."

  
"I'm sorry, I-"

  
"I didn't expect this week to, like, bring me here, to be honest with you-"

  
"Neither did I!" Phil says. "I was gonna - I was gonna take it to the grave, I swear to God."

  
Dan swallows. He's gonna wake up any moment, surely. This can't be his real life.

  
"I'm glad you didn't," He says.

  
Phil's smile is soft and so beautiful.

  
"Me too," He says.

  
Although if this was a dream, Dan thinks, he would've worn something more practical. His legs are freezing because the icy breeze blowing through the city is getting him right in the rips in his jeans.

  
Must be real, then.

  
They end up taking refuge in the Starbucks nearby, which is busy downstairs but a little quieter upstairs. Dan pokes at his soy pumpkin spiced latte and watches the way Phil sits in the armchair opposite him, fingers drumming endlessly against his knees.

  
"I dunno what to say," He admits, after a moment. "This is, like, super impulsive. I didn't think it'd reach this point."

  
"Why?" Dan asks, curiously. 

  
Phil looks at him and blows upwards in an exhale.  
"I thought you'd, like, politely reject me. Or impolitely reject me. Both would've been totally valid."

  
Dan's shaking his head before Phil even finishes speaking.

  
"No way," He says. In that second he decides he has to be honest with Phil, even if it terrifies him - even if it hurts. "I'm, like, stupid about you. Obviously."

  
Phil swallows, adam's apple bobbing.

  
"I mean, like," He licks his lips. "You say _obviously_ but, like. You've got this impenetrable fortress thing going on."

  
Dan laughs then.

  
"Shut up," He says, stretching his leg out to kick Phil gently in the ankle. Just like that, the weird tension is completely gone. They're just Dan and Phil again, the way it should be.

  
"Seriously," Phil says. His smile fades a little, uncertainty creeping back into his features. "I just - I thought you weren't interested. I thought you had, like, some bloke you were seeing who had like arms like tree trunks, or something."

  
"Right, yeah," Dan says. "He's in the street gang that I'm in."

  
"Oh my God," Phil says, rolling his eyes and laughing.

  
-

  
They end up wandering around town, aimless, swept up in the weekend crowds. The food market near Piccadilly Gardens smells amazing and they wander through it, eyeing up all the different street foods.

Dan gets caught up watching someone on a crepe stall flipping pancakes with ease.

  
"Me," Phil says, mouth close to his ear, enough to make him shudder.

  
"Shut up."

  
"Me on pancake day."

  
"Right, yeah."

  
That's when Phil slips his hand into Dan's, cold fingers meeting cold fingers. Dan feels light-headed, he feels stupid - he feels so much that when Phil speaks again the words buzz through his brain without leaving even the smallest impression behind.

  
"Sorry?" He says, stupidly, and flushes when Phil laughs. "Shut up, loser. You really gonna just hold a guy's hand like that and expect him not to - to -" He makes a wiggly fingers gesture next to his head with his spare hand, pulling a face and grinning when Phil does.

  
"Ah, yeah, the scandalous hand hold," Phil says, waggling his eyebrows. He tugs Dan's hand a little, squeezing, and they carry on walking. The sun that falls on the paving stones beyond them is golden and beautiful, and Dan can smell chlorine drifting across from the fountains, the hiss and whisper of the water hitting the concrete. "I might even hug you eventually. That'll cause a real stir."

  
"Fuck off," Dan says, pulling Phil's hand and laughing. They pause again, and Dan can't help but stare at how Phil looks - at how he always looks. It feels like now he has permission to drink him in with his eyes, to really look at his smile and the way it crinkles his eyes and the place on his jaw he must've missed when he was shaving. "This is a bad idea, y'know."

  
"Why?" Phil says, immediately. They keep walking and Dan's relieved - somehow it's easier to have this conversation when he just has to focus on where he's walking, the two of them connected by their hands. "Do you not wash your hands after you use the bathroom? Because that's a dealbreaker, gotta tell you."

  
"Jesus Christ," Dan says, laughing helplessly. "I don't mean - I don't mean the hand holding's a bad idea, I mean - I mean the whole thing. Like. You - you liking me." Even now it feels presumptuous to just say it like that. "Terrible idea. Awful."

  
"Alright," Phil says, voice light. "Why is it so terrible?"

  
Dan shrugs, jostling Phil's hand in his.

  
"Dunno."

  
They stop again - this time on the corner near the art shop. Dan feels like his two worlds are colliding into some weird dreamlike mess - there can't be any other reason why he'd be stood here, so close to where he was buying paint the other day in his usual strange lonely way, holding hands with Phil of all people and telling him about how much of a mistake he's making by being foolish enough to like Dan.

  
"I just - this doesn't have to change anything, you know," Phil says, gentle and understanding. "Like - I never wanted to make you feel uncomfortable - or - or - make you feel like you had to rush into anything you weren't sure of."

  
"You didn't," Dan says, quickly. "You haven't."

  
"We can just carry on the way we were, if you want," Phil says, his eyes so big and beautiful that Dan has to look away for a moment, watching the way the breeze stirs the fallen leaves across the pavement. "Seriously, I - I won't take it personally or - or pressure you, or anything. I just. I really like you." And Dan has to look at him then, has to confirm that he isn't imagining this. "No way to say it without sounding like an arsehole, is there," He adds, self-deprecating.

  
"You don't sound like an arsehole," Dan says, squeezing his hand tight. His palm's sweating. "It's not - it's not that I don't like you, 'cause - Jesus Christ, Phil, I -" _I like you so much that it hurts_ , he could say. _The other day I was painting about you near a bridge, that's how much I like you_. "You sure you wouldn't hate me if I asked if we could - I dunno, take our time about this? Like - adjust, I guess."

  
"Of course not," Phil says, so gently and warmly that Dan doesn't know what to do with everything he's feeling. His hand twitches in Dan's. "Is this - is this ok?"

  
Dan closes his eyes for a moment. It's like he can't look at Phil for a second, like the sun itself is beaming out of his face. Icarus, that's Dan. 

  
"Yeah," He says, feeling stupidly choked up for no particular reason. "Yeah, it's ok."

  
-

  
"Hey," Dan says, that night, voice low. He and Nix are sitting on the roof of the abandoned factory again, but some people have taken refuge in the rooms below, and Dan doesn't want to be a dickhead and wake them up. "That guy I told you about. The gallery guy."

  
"The love of your life?" Nix says, without a shred of irony or sarcasm. They're picking at a sandwich, pushing little segments up under their scarf so they don't have to expose their face. 

  
"I mean, I never said that."

  
"Didn't have to."

  
"Right, ok," Dan says, face heating. It's pleasant this time though - all the times before this Dan had felt a weird sort of shame for liking Phil, like he was sullying him somehow with his romantic attention. "Well. He likes me too."

  
There's silence for a moment. The midnight train rattles by below, windows yellow and warm looking. Nix whistles and reaches out to gently punch him in the arm.

  
"Fuck," They say.

  
"I know."

  
"You peaked."

  
"I peaked," Dan agrees, grinning to himself, fond and secretive under his mask. "Where d'you wanna go tonight?"

  
"Victoria train tracks?" Nix says, after a moment's thought. "There are some fucking ugly tags over there, it's vile. And I have a plan on how to get there."

  
"Hit me."

  
They unzip their bag, paint cans clattering, and stuff their half-eaten sandwich in there before pulling out a handful of hi-vis material.

  
"Oh, fuck off," Dan says, laughing, heart clenching a little in his chest with fear.

  
"Train tracks."

  
"You're mad."

  
"I was watching this video," They say, ignoring him. "These guys use hi-vis to, like, get into places and nobody ever asks them what they're doing. Well - hardly ever." They pause. "And they're dickheads, which we aren't, so we're already winning."

  
"Nix."

  
"Come on," They say, and their eyes glint with mischief over their scarf. "It'll be fun. Don't let me down, old man."

  
So Dan doesn't.

  
-

  
_last night i probably broke about 5000 laws and nearly electrocuted myself but my crush likes me back so_ , Dan posts on Tumblr halfway through his shift the next day.

  
_mad lad_ , Theo, one of his mutuals, replies after a little bit. Dan can't help but laugh at that, even if it's quickly swallowed up by a yawn.

  
_its true i was 5000th law_ , someone anonymous sends him.

  
tryingforamazing replies to his post with a bunch of exclamation marks, which makes him smile, fondly.

  
_i can't believe it either_ , he sends to them.

  
-

  
"I have a proposition for you," Phil says, instead of hello. 

  
"You're so fucking ominous, you know that," Dan says, grinning. The dark streets are cold on the walk to the tram, but just talking to Phil makes him feel like he's walking through a heatwave.

  
"That's a weird way of saying, like, _incredibly handsome and intelligent_ , but I'll take it," Phil says.

  
Dan feels like his heart's doing loop the loops at this point, honestly.

  
"Shut up," He says, grinning so hard it hurts. "What's your proposition?"

  
"It's good, you'll like it. Or you won't and that's fine, I just -"

  
"Phil."

  
"That artist who was here last week, the photographer, she gave me these show tickets. As a thank you, I guess. It's at the Albert Hall next weekend, I thought we could go."

  
Dan's interest is piqued.

  
"What's the band?"

  
"Oh, I literally dunno," Phil says. "I'll text it you later, I lost the paper. But I thought it might be fun."

  
"Yeah," Dan says. "I've never seen anything at the Albert Hall."

  
"Me neither. So - that's a yes?"

  
"It's a yes," Dan says, feeling breathless and overwhelmed. "Hey."

  
"Yeah?"

  
"You are, you know. Incredibly handsome, and - and whatever else you said."

  
"Ah, you're bound to say that," Phil says, a smile in his voice. "I just hooked you up with free gig ticket because I'm, like, so cool and fresh and - and streetwise."

  
"And you just ruined it," Dan teases, laughing.

  
"Stop, I didn't," Phil says. "Wanna stay over tomorrow? Gallery movie marathon?" When Dan doesn't say anything immediately, he adds, "Totally as friends? I can build a pillow wall between us."

  
"Phil," Dan says, fond and exasperated. "We don't need a pillow wall." He swallows, feeling suddenly awkward. "Sure."

  
"Great," Phil says. "It'll be - it'll be great."

  
-

  
"D'you ever just, like, wish you were cool," Phil wonders.

  
It's eight pm and Dan's eyes are drooping. Somehow they ended up watching Age of Ultron, which, it turns out, is a far shittier movie than he remembers it being back in the day. Not even Chris Evans and his arms can make it a redeemable experience, so they've been softly talking over it, Phil's laptop on the bed between them.

  
And Dan slowly nodding off, eyes closing, every movement feather-soft and gentle.

  
"Hmm?"

  
"Stupid question to ask the king of cool," Phil says, a joke in his voice. "Hey, are you tired?"

  
Phil's hand touches his bare elbow and strokes the skin there, gentle and lovely, and Dan forces his eyes open enough to say "I'm totally alert and awake, cool, you were talking about being cool."

  
"Oh my God, go to sleep," Phil says, still stroking his arm. "You should've said you were tired."

  
"I'm not that tired," Dan says, but his body betrays him with a yawn so big he feels like he cracks his jaw.

  
"Dan," Phil says. His warm hand finds the back of Dan's hand where it rests on the bed, and Dan twists his fingers helplessly to hold onto him somehow, the only way he feels brave enough. "You should sleep more."

  
"You should sleep more," Dan counters, well aware that he sounds like an annoying little kid. It's not particularly convincing, either, when he can barely keep his eyes open.

  
"Rest," Phil says, and squeezes his hand. When Dan finally succumbs, lying down, eyelids and limbs heavy, Phil's hand finds its way into his hair.

  
That's the last thing he feels before he drifts off. Just Phil's fingers gently stroking through his hair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update 💖 again thank you so much to all of you. Big thanks and 💖💖💖 to my wonderful beta 💖 there'd be no fic without you, Andrea!

Dan wakes up the next morning to an empty space next to him.

  
He groans, shifts under the covers and touches the wrinkled space where Phil was lying. He can hear singing in the kitchen – stupid, off-key and lovely, and he smiles to himself. Bless Phil, honestly.

  
He lies there for a moment, just listening to Phil's voice through the open door. He can see a slice of frosty blue sky through the skylight window, like someone painted it there. He doesn’t know what day it is, too caught up in the dream he'd been having, the smell of Phil all around him.

  
When he rolls over to check his phone, it turns out it's just after seven. He starts work at ten, so he has time. At least he actually brought clothes with him today so he doesn't have to wear the unknown PJ's forgotten clothes. 

  
When he pads into the kitchen, feet cold on the bare floorboards, it's to find Phil doing this adorable little dance-shuffle as he gets the milk out of the fridge, two cups of coffee already spiralling steam on the side. He can tell Phil's already had coffee - the guy's basically asleep without it - and something about his bed hair and how obviously cheerful he is makes Dan's heart feel so full that it might break his ribs.

  
In that one second, standing silently in the kitchen doorway, he wants nothing more than to go over there and touch the broad, wonderful slope of Phil's shoulder, push his fingers into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and - and - 

  
'Morning," Phil says, brightly. "You're in work today, right?"

  
Dan huffs out a laugh at him as he adds milk to their coffee.

  
"How come you knew that?"

  
"Lucky guess," Phil shrugs. "The joy of capitalism, I dunno."

  
"Mm," Dan says, taking a grateful sip of coffee when Phil pushes one of the mugs his way. 'What about you?"

  
Phil shrugs.

  
"Meeting a new artist at, like, one," He says, pulling a face. Phil hates meeting new artists, Dan knows, not because he hates the artists themselves but as director of the gallery he hates the fact that he might have to turn them down. Not that he ever has - not in Dan's memory, anyway. "That O'Connell guy's coming to collect his installation so Penny and Jeff are in to help me dismantle it, but maybe he'll be down later to help...It all just needs to be, like, bubble wrapped and whatever. Slung in the back of a van."

  
"Gently slung," Dan corrects, fondly.

  
Phil grins, eyes crinkling, and Dan feels lighter than air just looking at him.

  
"Gently slung, yeah," He says. A pause. "I wanna ring Peej, anyway. I think we should do some kind of, like, ode to street art."

  
Dan doesn't choke on his coffee. He doesn't, because to call him a street artist is to severely overestimate his contribution to the city's greying walls. His heart does seem to seize in his chest for a second, like he just got asked to answer a question he doesn't know the answer to in front of the whole class at school.

  
"Hmm," He ends up saying, non-committal.

  
"I just think it's so beautiful, I dunno," Phil says, enthusiasm lighting him up from the inside. "Like - there's so much bullshit in art, you know? It's so closed off and, like - oh, pay money to see this, come to this place to see that. It's like musicals, you know? Like - they don't release recordings of shows and bootlegs are super frowned upon so, like, how is any regular person meant to get into musicals? Unless you're rich you've got no chance." He stops, embarrassed. "I'm going on. You're letting me go on. I'm being boring."

  
"No, you're not," Dan says. "You're not!" He adds, when Phil hits him with this bashful, disbelieving little smile. It's enough to make him bridge the gap between them, clumsy cold fingers touching Phil's bare arm, then his hand. "Keep going. I like hearing you talk about things you care about."

  
It's just the truth, just the way he feels, but the way Phil looks at him for a moment makes him feel like he just formed the sun in his bare hands and personally placed it into the sky. His cheeks are pink when he continues.

  
"It's just - anyone can see it," He says, with a shrug. "Anyone can do it. It's - it's people just shouting out to everyone who walks past, even if they just wrote their name or their - their _tag_ , or whatever. And. It's cool, that's all."

  
Dan swallows, feeling a little exposed, a little seen, because Phil gets it. He feels the same way about it as Dan does, even if he has no idea.

  
"You're right," He says, voice somehow neutral. "I never thought of it like that before."

  
-

  
Phil ends up walking him to work. Dan tries to protest, tries to convince him to stay in and have a nap or whatever, but Phil just quietly insists.

  
And, let's be real, it's not a hardship for Dan to walk down the chilly October streets with Phil holding his hand. He feels like he's walking ten feet taller than usual, like the already beautiful leaf-strewn streets are somehow even more captivating, just because Phil's by his side.

  
It's not a short walk, either, across to the other side of town. They end up passing through the library briefly, yellow trams chuntering across the square, tourists stopping and taking pictures even at this time of the morning, people in suits barking into phones walking by in flocks, droves.

  
"What's the, like, collective noun for a group of office people, d'you think?" Dan wonders aloud.

  
Phil's quiet for a moment, the two of them pausing as another tram crosses in front of them, waiting until it's safe to cross the tracks.

  
"A business."

  
"A _business_ of office people."

  
"Yep," Phil says, and grins when Dan looks over at him.

  
He really is so beautiful. It's a bright and clear day and the sky is blue and Phil is undoubtedly the most beautiful person Dan knows. That's just how life is these days.

  
Outside the cafe, they stand and hold hands for a moment. Dan's early - the florist next door is slowly placing plants outside to attract customers, and Dan's just dimly aware of all this greenery in his peripheral vision.

  
"You didn't have to walk me," Dan says, at a loss of anything else to say.

  
"Yeah I did," Phil says. His eyes are soft, tender. Dan's heart is beating so fast, anticipation heavy in the air all of a sudden.

  
He shakes his head, because evidently he isn't too old to be beyond stupid flirting tactics.

  
"Yep," Phil says, softly.

  
He's so close all of a sudden, voice quiet. It’s like they never left the flat, like being with Phil is always gonna feel like they’re all alone and safe, locked away from the rest of the world.

  
Dan wants to kiss him. He wants to so badly – has for a while, if he's honest.

  
He feels like all the _want_ is flashing neon above his head, messages beaming out into space. He isn't brave enough to make the move himself. He’s frozen in place, and if he said anything about it his heart would probably flip-flop and he'd die.

  
"Oh, hey," Jess says, and Dan all but jumps out of his skin.

She's dragging the sign that advertises their coffee out onto the pavement, struggling to pull the sign and hold the front door open, and it takes this shock of visual cold water to realise how close he and Phil had become. 

  
"Here," Phil says, brain coming back to life quicker than Dan's ever could. He rushes to help Jess, and Dan follows behind - between the three of them they get the coffee sign set up, and then Jess is standing there surveying the two of them with something dangerously like glee in her glinting eyes.

  
"I didn't know you were in today," He says to her, lamely, silently begging her with his eyes not to embarrass him.

She just grins, a shit-eating grin that makes Dan feel dread down to his very bones.

  
"No lectures today and Carla's got the flu," She says, then turns to Phil. "I'm Jess. You're Phil, right?"

  
Oh, Dan's gonna kill her later, that's for sure.

  
"Er, yeah," Phil says, taken aback. "Hi."

  
"Hi," Jess says, and manages to inject as much feeling as possible into that one word.

  
"I'll be in in a minute," Dan says. "It's Carla's turn to take the milk delivery today so I guess it'll be you doing that."

  
"Guess it will," Jess says, and winks at him before she ducks back inside the shop. Right before the door swings shut, Dan can already hear her calling to Peri, laughter in her voice. He turns back to Phil, face red and hot.

  
"So, I, uh. I have been known to talk about you at work. Like. A lot. So. Yeah." 

  
The correct response to this, he thinks, would be if Phil turned on his heel and ran up the street, screaming in fear like a madman. Or at least, that's what Dan deserves Phil to do - the very least that he expects.

  
Instead, Phil grins. Of course he does.

  
"Honestly, mood," He says. "I think PJ's sick to death of me texting him about you all the time." 

  
He laughs, soft and conspiratorial, and Dan joins too, feeling light-headed with stupid relief. 

  
"I should..." He gestures at the cafe behind them. "I mean, like, I don't want to. Like, I really don't want to, but -"

  
"Capitalism," Phil says, nodding wisely. "I should probably, uh, prepare for that meeting, or something. Find some clothes that don't make me look like a kid dressing up."

  
"Stop, you never look like a kid dressing up," Dan says, rolling his eyes.

  
"Debatable," Phil says. Then, "Hey. Goodbye hug?"

  
Jesus Christ, Dan thinks, as his heart attempts to exit his chest with much force and gore, does everything he does have to be so adorable?

  
"Goodbye hug," He agrees, a wave of warmth washing over him as Phil pulls him close. "Loser."

  
"We're both losers," Phil says, holding onto him tightly, voice muffled into his shoulder. Then he turns and kisses Dan's neck, lightning-quick, right before Dan lets him go.

  
"Fuck off," He says, not realising how much he's smiling until Phil brushes one gentle finger to the dimple in his cheek.

  
"See you later," Phil says.

  
“Hey,” Dan says, taking a few steps after him. Phil turns, smiling. “You’re not a loser. You know that, right? I…” He swallows. “You’re perfect, really.”

  
Phil's pink in the face when he says, “No, you,” much too far away to hug again. 

  
Phil kisses his fingertips like a nerd, like a romcom love interest, and Dan makes a big show of rolling his eyes like he isn’t half a second away from swooning.

  
He stands there and watches Phil walk down the street. He waits until he gets swallowed up in the waves of commuters, until the sounds of the city come back to him again, the distant beep of a crossing and the juddering of passing buses, someone's phone ringing as they pass.

  
Quietly, privately, he touches the spot on his cheek that Phil had just touched, like there's some remnant of his touch there that can leach warmth into his bones. 

  
Like a love-struck idiot, basically.

  
When he finally ducks into the cafe, it's to find that Jess has left him a cup of coffee by the till in his favourite mug. He doesn't know where she is but Peri's in the kitchen, phone hooked up to the speakers, blasting something loud and scarily punk sounding that Dan guesses is an acquired taste.

  
Taking a grateful sip of the coffee, with his head full of Phil, he goes to fill the mop bucket.

  
-

  
It's the middle of the lunchtime rush when it happens.

  
Aside from Dan being, like, utterly loopy in love, it's a regular day. He enjoys shifts with Jess and Peri, laughs at the dark look on Peri's face when a customer orders something she doesn't enjoy making, listens to Jess's latest lecture hall drama, and serves a lot of customers who are actually genuinely nice and kind - which some days feels relatively rare in the cold world of customer service.

  
Jess is just talking about how there had been another arson attack the previous night - something about an abandoned building close to the uni, while Dan tries to wrestle with the coffee machine. He had barista training, he swears he did, it's just some days the stupid thing is more like the control board for the Starship Enterprise than, like, a simple and easy device for making lattes.

Against all the odds, after a moment he manages to get the stupid machine to work and goes to hand a waiting customer their coffee.

  
It's the customers who Jess is serving that tip Dan's world momentarily sideways. One second he's leaning through the hatch window to the kitchen to tell Peri that someone else wants a chilli chicken wrap, please, and the next -

  
"Nix-"

  
"Two hot chocolates," A voice Dan knows very well orders confidently. Dan freezes, staring at the cutlery in front of him.

  
"D'you want cream with that?"

  
"Nix, I'll get this."

  
"I'm getting it," Nix says, and Dan is helpless to do anything other than turn and come face to face with Nix. "Cream would be great, thanks.”

  
They're just a kid. I mean, he knew they were all along, of course he did, but beyond a strip of dark skin around their eyes he'd never really seen them before. Now he can and he feels guilty. He feels exposed. They're just a kid wearing dungarees, a beanie pulled low over their forehead, all heart-eyes for the person they're with, who looks a similar age.

  
"God, now I want a hot chocolate," Jess says under her breath, starting her own battle with the coffee machine to get their order. "Want me to make us one later, Dan?" When he doesn't reply, she repeats his name.

  
"Er, yeah," Dan says. When he looks up he catches Nix's eye, and sees the recognition there, clear as day. Thankfully another customer comes to the counter and Dan gets to walk over and reel off his usual cheerful hi-what-can-I-get-you spiel, removing himself from the situation completely.

  
-

  
"So this is weird," Nix says, later, at the factory.

  
"It's not weird," Dan says, even though it is. He has his mask on still, even though he's not entirely sure there's any point anymore.

  
"We're like superheroes who just found out each other's identity," Nix says, as deadpan as usual, and actually laughs when Dan looks over at them. "What, you don't think that's what it's like?"

  
"No," Dan says, but he laughs too. After a moment's pause, he adds, "It doesn't change anything. I'm not about to rat you out, and you're not about to rat me out, either."

  
"Rat me out," Nix says. "Do you hear yourself speak sometimes, old man?"

  
"Sadly, yes," Dan says, laughing when they roll their eyes. “It’s fine. Doesn’t change anything.”

  
“Oh, I know,” Nix says. “It’s just. Y'know. Superheroes.”

  
“Except we don’t actually fight crime,” Dan reminds them.

  
“Not yet.”

  
“Not yet,” Dan agrees.

  
“But we could. Hypothetically.”

  
“Shut up,” Dan says, laughing, pushing their shoulder gently. 

-

  
The upcoming weekend is, like, Schrodinger's big event, or something. It both seems to come along quicker than Dan had thought it could and also seems to be miles and miles, hours upon hours upon hours away. 

  
Dan looked up the band on Spotify, downloaded a handful of eps to listen to on the tram. It's good, lots of drums and guitars, maybe not what he'd normally listen to but not bad at all.

  
"I haven't even bothered," Phil says, with horror, when Dan tells him. "D'you think it matters?"

  
"No," Dan says, grinning at him and reaching out to squeeze his gloved hand with his own cold, ungloved fingers. They're drinking coffee in a park right next to the university - droves of students pass on their way to lectures, chattering and laughing and putting what Dan had thought was a cute outfit to shame. "Hey."

  
"Mm?" Phil asks, tangling their fingers together. He can't shuffle closer because there are stupid metal arm rests separating the different seats on the bench they'd chosen, a tragic contraption no doubt designed to stop homeless people actually being able to sleep there.

  
"You know that vegetable stall over there?" He asks, gesturing vaguely through the trees, bare branches stretching up into the white afternoon sky like spidery veins. "I spoke to the guy once and he said he had to move all of his, like, nuts into a special plastic thing 'cause squirrels kept coming over and stealing them right off the stall."

  
Phil laughs, bright and delighted.

  
"Shut up! That can't be true."

  
"Seriously," Dan says, grinning. "He had a little water pistol to fight them off and everything."

  
"Oh my God," Phil says. "Hey, look."

  
Dan turns in time to see a squirrel running down a nearby tree and pausing on the path for a moment before it hurries away, tail undulating.

  
"Probably off to steal some nuts."

  
"Right, yeah," Phil says, sarcastic and fond. 

  
They're quiet for a moment. Dan feels so content. The cool breeze brings leaves fluttering across the path like snowflakes, tiny wisps of the smell of Phil's aftershave drifting across to him, the softness of Phil's glove against his hand.

  
"I'm sorry," He says, out of nowhere, the worry that's been running around and around in his head ever since Phil first held his hand finally escaping out of his mouth.

  
"What for?" Phil asks, as gentle and understanding as ever.

  
"This," Dan gestures between them. "I've - I've been, like, stressing about it, I guess. I just didn't know what to say, or - or how to tell you."

  
Phil's hand twitches in his, nervously.

  
"Tell me what?" He asks, voice so quiet that Dan basically has to lip read.

  
"I feel like I'm letting you down," Dan admits, hesitantly. "Because - because I'm all, like, _oh, can we take it slow_ , or whatever. And - and I don't want you to think it's 'cause I don't like you, or - or 'cause I don't wanna be with you, 'cause it's really not that."

  
"I don't think that," Phil says, squeezing his hand tight. He tugs their joined fingers up to his mouth so he can kiss Dan's cold knuckles, an action that makes Dan feel so much all at once that he has to close his eyes, overwhelmed. "I _don't_ , Dan. We can take it as slow as you want, we can - we can be friends, I - I love being your friend, it's not like I lose out either way."

  
"But I wanna-" Dan stops, almost feeling a lump rise in his throat. _I wanna be your boyfriend_ , he doesn't say. _I wanna be stupid and romantic with you, even more than I already am. I wanna call my mum and tell her I met a guy who isn't absolute trash_. "It's like we're in limbo, or something."

  
"I'm actually really good at limbo," Phil says, nodding seriously. When Dan stares at him, he adds, "Ok, that was a lie."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"I'm serious, Phil."

  
"I know," Phil says. "But it doesn't matter. I mean - of course it matters that you're, like, worried, I don't want you to be worried. It doesn't matter to me if - if you _never_ feel ready, like - just knowing you is a reward, you know? Stop, I know I sound like an idiot."

  
Dan shakes his head, blinking hard.

  
"You don't." He swallows. "I just - I don't want you to end up hating me and, like, feeling like you can't tell me."

  
"I won't end up hating you."

  
"You don't know that for sure," Dan says, eyebrows twisted up with worry. "You - I went out with this guy a couple of years ago and - and - he stopped feeling the same way, which is _fine_ , just - just he didn't _tell_ me. And I was convinced I'd done something wrong so I tried harder and harder to - to get him to actually like me again, but - but he'd just get angry with me, and -"

  
"And I wouldn't do that."

  
"Wouldn't what?" Dan asks. "Stop feeling the same way about me?"

  
Phil just looks at him, face solemn and handsome.  
"I don't think I will, no," He says, quietly. "I can't - I wouldn't _promise_ , not 'cause - not 'cause I think I will, or - or that I'll just fuck off after six months, but - nobody _knows_ what'll happen, you know? You might meet some guy with, like, abs, and want to run off with him."

  
"I won't," Dan says, and he knows just as he says it that it's the cold hard truth. 

  
"But nothing's for sure, really," Phil says. "Nothing. All I know for sure is - I promise I won't treat you badly. And - and I promise to be honest, no matter what. We can talk anything out, anything at all."

  
Dan could honestly cry. He could but he doesn't, just swallows around the thickness of his throat and rests his head against the cold shoulder of Phil's wool coat.

  
"You're not real," He says, so so quietly, like it's a secret. "You can't be."

  
"I always think the same thing about you," Phil says.  
They sit there like that for a long time.

  
-

  
The night of the show is cold and rainy.

  
Dan likes autumn - he likes being able to dig out jumpers and hoodies, likes the fact that he can keep wearing his all-black wardrobe without it killing him like it does in the summer months. But he'd like to hear from anyone who can actually put a good outfit together when it's raining. His hair alone is bound to turn into a matted, drowned rat mess, and his one hooded coat is so unattractive it's painful.

  
He ends up wearing it anyway, at a loss of what else to do, just hoping there'll be a cloakroom he can abandon it in.

  
Phil meets him at Victoria, like always. They end up getting something to eat, their knees touching under the table, Phil making Dan laugh like always. It isn't lost on him that this is a date - dinner and a show, that's as date-like as it's possible to get without, like, going to see a film or anything.

  
"I should've listened to them more," Phil says, hanging off Dan's arm as they walk to the venue. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

  
"This was your idea, not mine," Dan says, laughing at him. "It's gonna be fun no matter what, don't worry."

  
-

  
And it is.

  
They don't know the music. They _really_ don't. But the band and the crowd have amazing energy, and he and Phil alternate between dancing like fools at the back of the hall to getting swept up when everyone surges forwards for certain songs, gazing up out of a spotlit forest of arms, feeling like he can conquer the world.

  
That's not the show though, that's Phil. When Dan looks over him it's to find his attention rapt on the stage, eyes bright and full of wonder.

  
He's really, truly one of the most beautiful sights Dan thinks he'll ever see, face lit up with pink and green and yellow as the stage lights cycle through colours, his hand safe on the crook of Dan's elbow when they get shoved by people behind them - not oppressive, not controlling, just - just making sure that Dan's still there with him.

  
They get split up after the show.

  
It's not intentional, it's just the venue's so full that people are getting herded out of different exits, and Dan looks around at one point and finds that Phil's just gone. Dan's sweaty and overheated, coat thrown over his arm and hair plastered to his head, and he can't wait to get out into the cool air.

  
He gets a text off Phil that's just a bunch of exclamation marks.

  
_meet u outside_ , he texts back, awkward and one handed as he shuffles along to a side door with a bunch of teenagers in heavy makeup who are much, much cooler than he feels like he'll ever be.

  
When he finally stumbles out into a damp side street, the cool air washes over him and he breathes it in with relish, goosebumps rippling on his sweating arms. It's been raining more while they were indoors but it's stopped now - the sky's dark and the air smells wonderful and clean, the way it only does after rain.

  
It's one of those moments that drifts to Dan sometimes these days, in idle seconds, when he's in bed and he can hear rain pattering against his window, when Jess makes a customer an espresso and the smell in the air is so rich and perfect.

  
And now, standing in an unfamiliar alleyway with his ears ringing, looking up at the far-distant black sky, stumbling slowly towards the main street, yellow-lit and golden.

  
It's then that Phil appears. He's wearing his jacket again, silhouetted against the street lit road, long legs and broad shoulders, looking down at his phone. Dan's phone buzzes with a text in his pocket but he doesn't bother to read it. He just moves slowly, watching Phil, feeling so much that he almost can't breathe, feelings so heavy that his knees ought to be buckling under the weight of them.

  
It's a different sort of heavy feeling than the depression, he thinks. That had been unbearable, like cold water forcing its way down his throat and choking him. This is heavy in the sense that it seems fake, wrong almost, that one person can hold so much emotion. It must be spilling out of him every time he moves, he thinks, fizzing in every exhale of breath. 

  
When he gets to Phil his heart's beating so fast, skin tingling, and Phil finally spots him and beams.

  
"Thank God, there you are," He says, hand gently touching the crook of Dan's elbow. "Hey, you're cold."

  
"I'm ok," Dan says, shaking off his concern like a cat shaking off an irksome fly. He's captivated, rendered stupid, unable to do anything other than look at how Phil glows in the yellow streetlight, how his hair's stuck up every which way and his glasses are a little foggy. "Can I ask you something?"

  
"Anything," Phil says, and visibly gulps when Dan touches the side of his face, just wanting to brush his thumb across a high cheekbone.

  
"I don't think I wanna take things slowly anymore," Dan says, and he feels stupid for saying it like that, like a line in a cheesy movie, right up until Phil's hand finds his waist.

  
"Ok."

  
"So can I kiss you?"

  
Phil laughs, the quietest of exhales through his nose.  
"Stupid question," He says. Dan can feel his breath on his face as their cold noses touch. "'Course you can."

  
So Dan does. Right in the mouth of the alleyway, with chattering showgoers all around them. Someone wolf whistles - Dan just laughs against Phil's lips and slides a hand into his hair.

  
He truly doesn't think he's ever felt more brilliant in his entire life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a huge thank you to my wonderful beta Andrea 💖 and to anyone who's left comments or kudos on this so far. It really keeps me writing, thank you all so so much 💖💖💖

They walk through the rain washed streets hand in hand, laughing like idiots. Phil's getting the tram home too, and he tries to convince Dan that the two of them should stay at the gallery before he remembers that PJ's staying there tonight.

  
"The one and only time he's actually there," Phil says, dramatically, much to Dan's amusement.

He's hanging off Dan's arm like a little kid, and it just makes his heart feel even fuller than it already did, a balloon filled with helium deep in his ribcage, lifting him off the gum-spotted pavement and into the air.

  
Phil and kissing Phil might be Dan's rose-tinted spectacles, he thinks.

  
They have to part ways at Victoria because they're catching different trams. Phil didn't technically have to walk through the entire city to get a tram with Dan - Dan knows for a fact he could've got one from Deansgate. It's an unspoken decision between them, an attempt to drag out the night together for as long as they possibly can. It feels like there's magic in the air somehow, even when people are yelling drunkenly as they pass and it starts spitting, little water droplets catching on Phil's glasses and Dan's eyelashes. He doesn't bother to put his hood up - it's that kind of night. 

  
He feels like he's been plucked out of his everyday life and into some new, rarified place, where everything glints and glimmers. The trees across the city are decorated with orange paper lanterns with jack o'lantern faces on them, and the lights gleam like stars in the branches. 

  
Nights like this just don't happen to Dan. He feels blessed. He feels like his alarm clock will ring any second and he'll wake up alone with nothing but the memory of Phil's kisses on his lips, a gentle, whispering echo of a feeling, something that never happened.

  
"Call me," Phil says, when Dan's tram inevitably slides into the station mere moments after they arrive. He hesitates, people bustling past them, then darts forwards to kiss his lips, soft and warm and sweet. 

  
Dan feels like his stomach dips, the rollercoaster feeling back in full force.

  
"Oh, actually, no," Dan says, as he lets Phil go, gets one last squeeze of his gloved hand. "This is Cinderella, didn't you know? I'm gonna leave a shoe behind and you'll have to travel the whole city getting blokes to wear it to find me."

  
Their conversation is cut cruelly short when Dan has no choice but to shuffle onto the tram, throwing himself into a window seat so he can see Phil standing out there, the window framing him perfectly.

  
He makes a heart with his hands. Dan laughs, feels himself blush and laugh more at the unrealness of it all, the pure stupidity, the insanity. Then he flips the bird back, because he's Dan and he has to.

  
Phil rolls his eyes but his grin is like Dan just presented him with a bouquet of roses. As the tram slides away, boatlike as ever, his phone buzzes.

  
_i could find u right away cinderella_ , the first text says. Another buzz. _who else wears black platforms like u_

  
_FUCK OFF_ , Dan sends back, actually laughing out loud as he digs his headphones out of his pocket. His ears are still buzzing from the show but he needs love songs and he needs them now, he needs to keep this magical feeling going. _you got me there though_.

  
He wonders if Phil's thinking of the meme - the guy from Catfish. His question's answered when his phone buzzes again and he sees that Phil's sent him the actual meme, the Catfish guy and all.

  
_God, you're perfect_ , he thinks, and means it completely.

  
-

  
"You're like, deeply in love with this guy," Nix says, matter of factly.

Dan might've been talking about Phil all night in hushed whispers. 

  
He keeps a lot of it to himself, secret reminiscences of how Phil's lips had felt, how kissing him had been like those stupid YouTube videos where people put mints in bottles of coke and they inevitably fizz up and spill over everywhere. Dan feels like everything he'd been feeling anyway had just fizzed up out of him, and - and Phil kissing him had been the mints.

Whatever, Dan never claimed to be good at imagery.

  
"Don't say it like that."

  
Nix is painting in quick, efficient strokes, ever the professional. Dan is helpless to do anything but watch them - he doesn't trust himself to spill his guts on a wall tonight, he doesn't think. God knows what'd come out.

  
"What, 'cause it's true?"

  
Dan doesn't know what to say to that. Love's a big word. It's messy. It hurts people. Rushing into saying he was in love was where he went wrong with his last disastrous relationship.

  
"'Cause - we only went on one date," He says, hesitantly. He can't explain this to a kid, not even one as intelligent as Nix. "It's too soon."

  
Nix just looks at him - that sharp look of theirs, like they can see right through Dan, right through all of his bullshit and directly into his head. They probably can. Artist and psychic medium, that's Nix.

  
"I'll ask you in a month," They say, and step back from their piece. They used a bunch of colours today, a heart in stripes of purple, white, yellow and black.

  
"I'm not inspired," They say, almost apologetically.

  
"Stop," Dan says. "It's still miles better than anything that I could manage."

  
Nix tilts their head, not disagreeing, and Dan laughs at their brutal honesty.

  
"You really have improved though," They say, with feeling. "I like your stuff. It's like the shit someone'd put on a private Twitter. But you, like, put it on a wall." They grin. "That's fucking metal."

  
Even though it's nothing at all, Dan glows at the praise.

  
"Whatever you say."

  
"You gonna do something?" Nix nods at the wall.

They're by the canal again, but further into town - Dan knows they're about two minutes away from the gay village, joyous drunken shouts and snatches of music drifting down the water like exotic bird calls in the dark. Streetlight from Oxford Road above ripples on the surface of the water. Dan thinks this particular bridge is creepy, mostly because he has to hunch over to walk through it. Nix is fine, of course, but Dan's probably gonna get curvature of the spine if he stays in here for too long.

  
"Sure," is what he ends up saying, not what he'd intended at all.

  
As soon as he pulls his pink paint can out of his bag, the words come to him and his arms move like he'd planned this all along.

  
_you make me happy_ , he paints, followed by his usual heart.

  
"Mate," Nix says, when he's done.

  
"What?" Dan asks, bristling a little at _mate_ \- it gives him unpleasant flashbacks to conversations with aggressively heterosexual lads in uni bars, not that Nix is anywhere near anything like those people. He's just being stupid.

  
"Deeply in love," They say. " _Oh we only went on one date_ ," They add, in an awful southern accent, a terrible parody of Dan's speaking voice that makes him laugh too loud, sound echoing in the low space.

  
"Fuck off," He says, still laughing.

  
"You know I'm right," They say. "C'mon, let's go."

  
They head back to the factory, which is a short walk away. It's deserted for once, nobody sleeping downstairs, and they head straight up to the roof.

  
Dan should go home. He should get some sleep - he has so much stuff to do tomorrow. But there's that warm promise of sunrise in the air, black sky fading to inky blue. Sunset over the buildings in the city is one of the most beautiful things Dan's ever had the good fortune to see.

  
Not including Phil, he thinks. Not including Phil.

  
They sit in companionable silence. Dan sips the diet coke he'd stashed in his bag. When the sky gets shot through with gold and pink, like a cherry blossom unfurling, a breath of spring in the depths of autumn, he fishes his phone out of his pocket and snaps a picture.

  
Impulsively, he posts it to tumblr. In the tags he writes, _everything about life is truly wonderful_.

  
-

  
Dating Phil keeps him warm over the colder months.

  
Because that's what they're doing. He, Dan Howell, has a boyfriend, and it's Phil.

  
It really is unbelievable. Everything had sort of snowballed after that one date - Dan had started staying over at the gallery more frequently, Phil walking him to work in the morning and kissing him under cover of the tall potted plants outside the florist next to the cafe. 

  
They'd just sort of fallen into being in a relationship without either of them talking about it, until one rainy day when they're on the bus to the Trafford Centre and the pair of them are sat opposite each other at the back, drawing increasingly stupid faces on the fogged-up glass with their fingers.

  
"So, like," Phil says. He's drawing another smiley face on the glass. "I wanna call my mum and tell her about you."

  
"Ok," Dan says, reaching over to give the face a moustache. It's only when Phil doesn't laugh at his immaturity and just looks at him that he goes over what he said again in his head. "I mean, she knows about me already, right?"

  
"Well, yeah," Phil says, rolling his eyes a little. "But, like. I meant. Do I tell her you're my boyfriend or not?"

  
Dan blinks, stupidly.

  
"Yeah," He says. Then, with more certainty, a smile forming on his face, he continues. "Yeah, yeah of course you do. Fuck, of _course_ you do."

  
He has to move then, launching himself from the seat opposite to the one right next to Phil, just so he can kiss his blushing cheek, then the corner of his mouth.

  
"Thank God," Phil says, laughing, but he grabs hold of Dan's hand and squeezes tight.

  
"Have we really not talked about that yet?" 

  
" _No,_ " Phil says, grinning. "I was losing my _mind_ , honestly."

  
"Phil! You should've said something."

  
"I know, I know," Phil says, and leans into him. Dan leans right back. "I just - I was worried you'd say no. Or that I'd got the wrong idea, I dunno. I know it's stupid," He adds, quickly, when Dan opens his mouth to protest.

  
"It is," Dan says. "But I get it. And I was always gonna say yes, God."

  
"Ok," Phil says, and his smile is so soft, so warm and happy, that Dan just has to kiss him then, with the bus rumbling all around them, in traffic somewhere.

He has to.

  
-

  
That's not to say that Dan isn't anxious about how things are going. He is.

  
Not that Phil's done anything bad - he's just Phil, the guy who lets Dan warm his feet under his thigh when they're sitting sprawled together in the gallery flat. Phil, who doesn't have a bad bone in his body. No, Dan's anxious just because anxiety is second nature, his fallback, his constant.

  
It prickles in the back of Dan's mind like a nettle sting, thinking about how awful his mental state had been last time he'd started a relationship with someone. The irrational nature of anxiety is almost certainly the worst part, he thinks. Because he worries that perhaps he's not doing as well as he thinks he is, despite the fact that he _knows_ he is. He takes his tablets every day, doesn't even think about not taking them. He _knows_ he's doing much better these days.

  
But, he thinks (when he's making coffee at home, when he's taking a plate of pasta over to a table at work, when he's scanning his phone on the ticket barrier at the train station), at the start of his last relationship he'd thought that he was fine. He thought all the stuff going on in his head was average. He hadn't even viewed himself as sad, even though he'd cry way more than he ever used to over things that hardly mattered at all.

  
He can't trust himself. Maybe that's an anxiety thing. He just can't trust his perception of things.

  
He's the unreliable narrator of his own life, basically.

  
He reassures himself as best he can. In his last relationship, Dan had relied on his partner to keep him going, which was probably the most unhealthy thing he's ever done. He'd held the relationship up as the one good thing he had going for him, even forgoing talking to other people or making effort in other aspects of his life because it didn't feel like there was any point - so long as he had his ex.

  
He reasons with himself that that's not the case this time. He enjoys lots of things in life now - he paints, listens to music, tends to the herbs on his kitchen windowsill that he hasn't actually used to cook yet. He enjoys the whisper of a can of spraypaint and a beautiful sunrise in the middle of winter.

  
There's more to life than him and Phil, basically. And that's how it should be.

  
It's not enough to stop him worrying, but it's something.

  
-

  
Halloween comes and goes. There's a special event at the gallery and Phil wears a ridiculous Beetlejuice suit that he somehow looks amazing in. Dan wears his usual black but looks up a tutorial on liquid latex and makes vampire bite marks on his neck - the most low energy costume ever, but Phil's utterly delighted and keeps slipping his arm around Dan's waist at the party.

  
That's a thing. Because normally he works these gallery events, wearing his drab formal clothing and smiling inanely at people in expensive clothes with expensive heels clicking on the floorboards. This time Dan's there as Phil's partner, his plus one, and he feels weirdly out of place when Phil drifts away from him, smiling and shaking hands, and wonderfully found when Phil drifts back to him, tucking their hands together and murmuring jokes in his ear that make him laugh too loudly for such a comparatively fancy Halloween party.

  
Halloween means a lot to Dan. It was Halloween when he first became a street artist, if he could call himself that, and starting painting feels like when he began to turn his life around - when he started consulting doctors about his abject miserable feelings, when he started to actually talk to people in his life, when he started calling his mum again.

  
On actual Halloween night, instead of roaming the streets with Nix in his rubber witch mask, Dan sleeps with Phil in the gallery flat, curled around each other.

They stay up too late, dozing and talking in fond whispers in the dark.

  
-

  
The Christmas markets seem to appear the moment the orange pumpkin lanterns disappear from the trees. Dan likes them in theory - he likes the wonderful smells that drift from the food stalls and the way they're all lit up at night, but in practice they make his morning and evening walking commute a little nightmarish.

  
"Why's he orange, anyway?" Phil asks. Dan knows without looking that he's talking about the terrifying giant Father Christmas figure that they put on the town hall roof, big bug eyes staring down at the markets below.

  
"Festive cheer," Dan replies, vaguely. 

  
Phil's wearing his fleecy old man gloves like always and he absent mindedly rubs a thumb against the material, not entirely sure that Phil can even feel it through them but hoping so anyway.

  
They hadn't even intended to go to the markets - Phil had just dragged him through on the way to Sainsburys because they’re out of milk.

  
"You having a vegan moment?" Phil asks, fondly, pulling Dan along, nose practically in the air like a cartoon dog. "There are festive cheese toasties over here."

  
"A vegan moment," Dan repeats, halfway between a scoff and a laugh. "I really do try, y'know."

  
"I know," Phil says, absently, eyes caught on a stall full of sparkling hanging gems that catch the light and make little rainbows in the air. He drops a kiss to Dan's cheek, or tries to - so distracted that he gets his nose more than anything. "Look, shiny things."

  
_I love you_ , Dan thinks, sharp and sudden, with a clarity that pierces him in the chest like a knife.

  
Nix was right, damn them. Not that he'll say. Not that he'll even say anything to Phil - it's a curse, three words bound to force everything to end in flames.

  
Doesn't stop him feeling it though - watching Phil clumsily prod at hanging gems, eyes wide and fascinated, feeling like there's a bright flame in his chest, warm and comforting, bathing everything in golden light.

  
-

  
"Can't believe you've left me," Jess says, looking surprisingly droopy for someone wearing a fuzzy pair of antlers.

  
"What?" Dan's focused on making the swirl of cream on the hot chocolate he's making absolutely perfect.

A little bit dribbles down the side and he swears, wiping it away with a tea towel. When he's done he sprinkles the top with edible glitter and takes it over to the guy with yellow hair at table seven.

  
"Single life," Jess clarifies a few moments later, leaning through the hatch to put an order tab under a magnet for the kitchen. "I'm the only one left now. Peri's, like, married, and you've got tall dark and nerdy. And I've got nobody."

  
"Jess."

  
"What?" Jess asks. "I just want a cute girl to want to kiss me, like...is that too much to ask?"

  
"No," Dan says, and smiles at a customer who's just approached the counter. "Hi, what can I get for you?"

  
The customer orders soup, and Dan scrawls it down on another tab and sticks it through to the kitchen.

  
"I'm just gonna get twelve dogs," Jess says. "And finish my degree."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"Excellent priorities."

  
-

  
Time passes, and Dan doesn't tell Phil about the painting.

  
He doesn't know why. It's not like he thinks Phil would be horrified - he'd probably be utterly thrilled, less so when he saw how terrible Dan's "art" actually is. 

  
But Dan likes that it's a big secret, like another persona that nobody knows about, a private part of his life where he can be this different person, this masked stranger who runs and hops over fences and melts into the darkness like a ghost.

  
Plus his art's personal - it's the parts of himself he's ashamed of, the tender parts that are easily wounded. Yeah, Nix sees those parts, but that's different. He and Nix paint side by side. The pair of them each give up parts of themselves, hearts laid bare in the darkness, partners in secrecy.

  
He loves Phil. He does, even though it's much too soon and he won't say it, won't ever breathe those killer words. He loves Phil and when Dan loves people they inevitably stop loving him. It's like his affection's poisonous, rotting everything it touches from the inside out. 

  
He loves Phil and his love is cursed, essentially, so he wants to keep some parts of himself to himself. He wants to make sure that if it all goes wrong he still has something in his life that's just his, something unsullied by the blackened, negative breakup feelings.

  
It's pessimistic, but it's just the way it is. The best way to be, in his opinion. And it's not like his art influences his relationship with Phil, anyway (it's still dizzying to think of Phil in those terms, to throw the word _relationship_ around like it's nothing). It's two separate things, two separate worlds, even if Phil occasionally drags him over to random walls when they're out to look at different graffiti and Dan has to blandly show appreciation like doesn't know anything about it. Which he doesn't really, but you know.

  
Anyway, the point is that the two worlds are separate, so Phil knowing or not knowing is immaterial.

  
Until there's an unwelcome collision, one night in the middle of November.

  
He and Phil had had a breakfast date that morning, Phil hunching over their little table in a little cafe and idly, maddeningly stroking the inside of his wrist where his veins swim close to the surface, translucent skin tingling under his unknowing, affectionate touch. Dan's so caught up, so stupid, that he'd spent idle moments in his shift at work touching the same place, head full of the memory of that feeling, tongue twelve sizes too big in his mouth and his skin singing like a boiled kettle.

  
After work he'd changed in the Arndale toilets, rolling his work clothes into a little ball at the bottom of his rucksack and using it to cushion his cans of paints. Nix isn't out tonight, he knows, and Dan doesn't often paint alone, but he isn't afraid to.

  
He wanders around the city like a ghost, taking back streets and side streets and routes without CCTV, paints on low walls and runs, footsteps crunching on broken glass and gravel. He sits in the factory for a while alone, hugging his knees close on the roof and staring down at the train tracks below.

  
He wishes Phil was there, in that moment. He wishes Phil could experience the city the way he does, the places people don't normally see, the things commuting eyes slide over without truly seeing. Every night that Dan spends pounding the streets with his paints he sees those things. It feels like he sees everything.

  
He sits for a while, feeling strangely small and lonely. He only moves when a siren from streets and streets away wails out of nowhere, startling him. Dan's heart lurches terribly in his chest and he imagines falling from this height, going splat on the pavement far below and caving his head in like a crushed watermelon.

  
That's enough to get him clambering through the hole in the roof, skin flooded with terrified warmth. He pulls his hood up as he's leaving the building, cutting through back streets until he comes out on the main road. There's a place down the side of the Ritz where he can cut down the canal path. It's second nature now for him to choose the routes where he's less likely to be seen.

  
In hindsight, it turns out to be a mistake. He ducks down way too confidently to make his way under the same low bridge he and Nix painted under weeks ago.

  
He's lost in his own head, which is why when someone moves in the shadows he isn't expecting it. They shove him into the brick wall, hard. Dan tries to straighten up instinctively and bashes his head against the bridge, crying out with pain and struggling as whoever it is holds him painfully in place.

  
"Bag," A voice says, gruff and short. Something presses into Dan's side through his hoodie and it's a _knife_ , holy shit it's a fucking knife or a gun or something. "Give me your bag."

  
Dan shrugs it off his shoulders, shaking, and tries to turn around only to get shoved again, pressure of the unknown object increasing against his side. His unknown assailant snatches the bag out of his hands and Dan just runs - just shoves backwards and runs back the way he came, long legs coming in useful for once, stumbling back onto the main road and still running.

  
He doesn't stop until he reaches the library, comfortingly familiar windows black and empty. He reaches the war memorial and his knees give out so he all but falls down with a bump.

  
There's blood on his forehead, hot and wet. He's shaking all over like he's been caught out in sub zero temperatures. And his bag's gone, and that guy had a knife -

  
His phone was in his bag. Of course it was. But Dan's dimly aware that closer to Shudehill there's a place where he can make a free phone call, a little screen with a speaker near some bars.

  
He doesn't know how he gets there. Nobody tries to stop him or speak to him on the way - he feels numb and afraid and jerks when there are loud noises, distant bang of a firework and screeching cackles of laughter.

  
He should just go home, he thinks, numbly. His head aches and his eyes blur and for a moment he forgets and thinks maybe he hit his head hard enough to damage his eyesight, but it's just tears.

  
"Hello?" Phil's voice leaks out of the speakers. Dan's painfully aware of hordes of drunk people passing him by and the fact that this conversation is as public as it can possibly get.

  
"Phil," Dan says, and his voice cracks on the word.  
"Where are you?" Phil asks immediately. "I'll come and get you, where are you?"

  
-

  
They end up sat in a yellow-lit A&E, Phil's arm protectively around his shoulders, rubbing his arm.  
"I'm fine," He keeps saying in a stupidly weak voice. "I promise, I'm ok."

  
Phil doesn't let him go and doesn't look any less twisted up and worried. 

  
Dan truly regrets telling him about the knife that probably wasn't a knife. He saw a stupid TV show once where a guy held up another guy and pressed the handle of a table spoon into his back and he fell for it - that's almost certainly what had happened to Dan, now he comes to think of it.

  
"If he'd wanted to kill me he would've just done it," Dan had said, which hadn't assuaged Phil's worries in the slightest.

  
In the end the head injury's pronounced superficial, but the doctor says they can't rule out concussion and he has to be woken up about five million times in the night to make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit or something.

  
Phil nods wisely throughout all this - he'd come into the examination room with Dan, holding his hand and leading him like he was infirm. Dan had made a show of rolling his eyes but he'd been relieved, so touched that Phil was just by his side no matter what.

  
In the morning, they'd talked. Dan's head aches and he fully intends to call in sick at work - Peri and Jess will be fine without him just this once. He feels like his brain's about to ooze out of his skull and drip down his neck.

  
"You were walking home," Phil says.

  
"Yeah," Dan says, softly. He's exhausted. They're lying face to face in bed, Phil's arm around his waist, his dark eyebrows furrowed with concern.

  
"Is that like when you were running for the tram?" Phil asks, softly, in the kind of tone that indicates that he already knows the answer.

  
Dan doesn't know what to say. He feels like a butterfly pinned to a card.

  
"I just don't want you to get hurt," Phil says. "Anymore than you already have been, you know?"

  
"I'm ok," Dan says. "I need to - to call the insurance company about my phone."

  
"You can use my phone," Phil says, immediately.

  
"I'm sorry," Dan says. Their noses touch when Phil shuffles closer. Phil's is cold, and he shudders.

  
"Nothing to be sorry for," Phil says, in a voice as soft and soothing as a warm bath. "Get some rest."

  
So Dan does.

  
-

  
He doesn't paint for a while after that. It gets to the point where Nix actually comes to the cafe, awkwardly ordering a pot of tea so Dan has to bring it to the table and they can ask him what's wrong in hissing, snakelike whispers.

  
When he tells them, they look mutinous.

  
"Did you see what they looked like?"

  
"No," Dan says. When Nix opens their mouth to say something evidently angry, he interrupts. "They had a knife and you're a kid, ok, so don't even think about it."

  
Jess gives them a suspicious look from the counter so Dan straightens up, pushes their tea tray further onto the table and walks away with a murmur of "I'm fine, honestly," as he retreats to the safety of the till.

  
-

  
He is fine, but he can't deny that he's shaken up. He hurries to the tram these days, keeps to well-lit streets, revels in the Christmas markets with their wonderfully safe noise and bustle.

  
It gets better as the days go on. By the end of November he ventures out after dark again, new backpack and new paints clinking as he walks. He meets Nix by Piccadilly and they walk in silence, making the seamless transition from lit streets to twilit backstreets, scraping sound of a crisp packet being blown along concrete by the wind and the moon in the sky above them like a beacon of molten gold, swimming in the inky sky.

  
Phil worries. He doesn't say very often but Dan can tell he does. He meets Dan at Victoria more often, walks him back to the gallery. Some nights he makes the commute home with Dan to his poky little flat, door sandwiched between a kebab shop and a pizza place on a shabby high streets on the outskirts of the city.

  
Dan's ex had called his flat the rat hole, and had always encouraged Dan to look for somewhere better, somewhere fancier, somewhere out of his price range. As much as Dan would like to be able to look at penthouses with balconies overlooking the city, his flat is within his price range and he likes it. He likes his Guild Wars poster, framed and hung ironically in the hall, he likes the squishy cushion on his couch shaped like a pac man ghost, he likes the water pressure in his shower, even if it wasn't made for tall people and nine times out of ten he conks his head on the showerhead and swears like a trooper under the spray.

  
As it turns out, Phil likes it too. It's just another way that he blows Dan's romantic history out of the water, his unconditional and uncomplicated acceptance for Dan exactly the way he is, warts and all.

  
"It's cosy," Phil says, one evening. Dan has the lamp lit in his room, cheap fairy lights wound around the rusty old bedframe. 

  
This is his favourite part of the day - just sitting in bed with a cup of herbal tea, knowing that soon he'll be curled up and fast asleep. It's weird having Phil here but it's not bad weird - Dan isn't any less relaxed, doesn't find himself wishing that he was alone. He's just content, watching Phil sipping his coffee. God knows how he can drink coffee so soon before bed but he's managing it, yawning into his cup and making happy stretching noises like a cat.

  
"Glad you like it," Dan says. 

  
He'd shoved all his laundry in the basket that he hardly ever uses and then he'd shoved the basket into the wardrobe for good measure. As a result his room actually doesn't look so bad at all and the lamplight really helps, casts lovely shadows over everything, softened and rose tinted.

  
"I do," Phil says, then drains the last of his coffee and sets the cup down on the bedside table with a thunk.

He yawns again, stretching, then slips his glasses off and abandons them next to his cup too. He shuffles in close and kisses Dan's shoulder through his t-shirt, resting his cheek there and peering at Dan scrolling through Instagram.

  
"Cute," He says, softly, when there's a little video of some baby pomeranians. Dan breathes out a fond little laugh and obligingly likes the video, carrying on scrolling. "Hey. Can you believe it's nearly Christmas."

  
"Shh," Dan says, no insistence in it. "No C word, not this early."

  
"It's not that far away!" Phil protests. "I think I'm going to my parents'."

  
"Me too," Dan says, even though he's not entirely sure.

  
"Mm. Don't know what to get you."

  
"I don't need anything," Dan says, automatically.

  
"Yeah, whatever."

  
"Yeah, whatever," Dan says, laughing a little, nudging Phil so his head bobs on Dan's shoulder. "Anyway, you might start hating me over Christmas."

  
"No," Phil says, attempting to talk over him.

  
"You might meet someone cute at a party and-"

  
"No no no no," Phil says, and his fingers dance at Dan's side, right where he's ticklish.

Dan lets out a high-pitched shriek that he won't admit to later and his phone falls out of his hand and onto the bed with a soft flump that he barely notices because he's too busy laughing and trying to squirm away from Phil.

  
"Fuck off, fuck off, alright, I get it, I get it-"

  
He's horizontal and his phone's digging into the small of his back and Phil climbs on top of him. If this was a movie it'd be a smooth move, all long legs and dark eyes, but as it is Phil laughs and swears under his breath as he's going and Dan waits until he's settled until he reaches up and touches the crinkles at the corner of his right eye, his other hand sneaking up the side of Phil's shirt to touch the soft skin at his waist.

  
"It's just you," Phil says, and if the whole climbing on top of him thing hadn't taken his breath away then that would've been enough to do it. "And I won't change my mind." He pauses, licks his lips. Dan's breathless and stupid. "If you're in it I'm in it, alright?"

  
When Phil finally kisses him, Dan can hardly remember what they were talking about anyway. It's not important.

  
-

  
"So you were right," Dan says, a few nights later.

Tonight's MO is different than usual - Nix has made a bunch of posters with pro-LGBT and anti-establishment slogans on them in cool fonts ("For media class," They explain, with a shrug, which gives Dan this sad moment of yearning for a class where this kind of thing had been acceptable when he was their age). Nix wants to stick them over the city, as far reaching as they can, and there are two bags of them.

  
"We don't have to," They'd said at the start of the night, but Dan was hardly about to say no when they'd gone to such an effort.

  
They're down a side-street near Piccadilly station with their hi-vis jackets on when Dan tells them. About being right.

  
"I usually am," Nix says. They have a real rhythm going with the posters - water and slap, water and slap, getting row after row after row done in the time it takes Dan to do one or two. "But, like, about what?"

  
"Phil," Dan says, pushing down one stubborn corner of a poster that says _trans rights are human rights._

  
"Love of your life?" 

  
"Yeah."

  
Nix makes a thoughtful noise, wise beyond their years. 

  
"Let's go," They say. "I wanna do a couple down by the university."

  
It's a weird evening. They started earlier than usual - autumn evenings drawing in giving them the cover of darkness far sooner than they'd got it in the summer, hence the hi-vis jackets to avoid seeming suspicious to drunken passersby or late Christmas market goers. Even so they try to keep to the back streets since neither of them have their faces covered these days, Nix leading them tiny and awkward and complicated routes all across the city. It's like they have an elaborate map in their head, he thinks, of all the little-known routes, the unknown corners and shadowy places. Smartest person he knows, he swears.

  
They end up in a place spotted with trees near the bright lights and glorious music of the gay village, light spilling out onto the cobbles like the whole place has an aura of joy. Dan's been on a fair few nights out there in his time but he doesn't really feel like it anymore - when he'd been younger he'd wanted to prove himself to be truly gay, one hundred percent queer, so he'd kissed random guys in dark corners and done shot after shot after shot and fallen out of more taxis than he could count. He'd been a student then, and even though those days are behind him he still has an irrepressible fondness for the place, with its array of pride flags flapping in the wind, the thump of music and the sound of laughter.

  
He's about to point out a trans flag fluttering in the breeze to Nix when one of the figures in the street turns and he realises it's Phil. At first he thinks it must be a lookalike but no - he'd recognise him anywhere, his hair and the shape of his head and the way his smile looks, even from this far away.  
It's Phil and he's with a random guy. Dan doesn't know who it is but they're laughing together, and the unknown guy has his hand on Phil's arm. They obviously know each other. As he watches, the unknown guy leans over and seems to kiss Phil on the cheek, everything too shadowy to tell.

  
Dan forgets himself for a moment, and it's only when Nix hisses his name that he freezes in the act of moving a little closer, trying to see exactly what's going on.

  
"Too many cameras around here, let's go," They say.  
Dan nods and doesn't know why there's a lump in his throat, a knot of ill-feeling in his stomach. It's just Phil talking to a friend, laughing with a friend. Dan can't be that person, he can't.

  
"Hey," Nix says, impatient. "Are you coming or what?"

  
Dan follows blindly, the pair of them disappearing into the shadows.

What Dan had seen sticks in his head all evening, after images imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, flashing like a camera in his head whenever he blinks.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the late update! I've been really struggling with this chapter and Dan's insecurity but here we go. Thanks as always to the wonderful Andrea 💖 you're an angel

Against his better judgement, Dan worries about Phil and the random guy.

  
It was innocent, he tells himself on the tram home. Phil's allowed to have friends. But logic and anxiety very rarely go hand in hand, so Dan dwells on it more than he should.

  
He's not that kind of person. He isn't. He isn't the person who goes through their partner's phone and stalks their social media interactions. 

  
But what if he is? What if he's exactly that kind of toxic person, just by worrying about this - just by doubting Phil even for one second? 

  
The emotions war in his head, the guilt and the worry. He feels like it's eating him from the inside out.

  
_tell me i'm being stupid_ , he writes on his blog. _i just saw my bf out with some guy i don't know and i'm like worried and jealous and i know i'm being stupid but pls somebody just tell me_

  
_you're being stupid_ , an anon sends him, just as he's making himself a herbal tea, classical music playing on his phone in a pathetic effort to assuage his anxiety.

  
_what do you mean u saw him out???_ another asks.

  
_just like out with a guy, like in the street??? it looked like he kissed him on the cheek but idk???? he didn't tell me he was going anywhere tonight_ , he writes, adding in the tags, _listen i know i sound like a dickhead i kNOW, i just had this shitty experience in my last relationship where my ex was like, in love w someone else and never told me, so shit like this gives me the fucking fear, n e way i love my bf pls ignore._

  
_don't let ur shitty ex ruin ur cute thing with this guy,_ tryingforamazing replies, with a bunch of heart emojis. 

  
They're right, he thinks, as he opens a chat with them to thank them. He's overthinking, letting his fears and insecurities from his past relationship drip down and infect the lovely thing he has with Phil now.

  
_i know it's stupid_ , he sends, drumming the fingers of his free hand against the countertop while the kettle hisses. 

  
_it's not_

  
_i sound like one of those crazy bfs_ , he says. _i know i do. i just worry that he'll find someone better_

  
It's the first time he's given voice to the fear that sits inside his chest like a coiled snake, dark and dangerous. He swallows hard - he can feel the exact point that pre-medication Dan would've started crying about this and just not stopped, but he's toughing it out.

  
_you just have to trust him_ , tryingforamazing says eventually. _i know its hard esp when you have anxiety but you just have to remember that ur brain blows these things out of proportion_

  
_you're right_ , he says, with a heart emoji. sorry.

  
_maybe talk to him too??? like if it really starts to bother you. he can reassure you then_

  
Except Dan absolutely can't go crawling to Phil for validation like that. That's how it had all started going downhill with his ex and his absolute reliance on the guy, begging for affection like pigeons picking at scant crumbs on concrete.

  
_yeah_ , he says, instead. thank u. Then, feeling bad, he adds, _how are things with u and ur guy???_

  
The kettle clicks off, and he pours water into his waiting mug, yawning. By the time he's crawling into bed and resting his tea on the bedside table, he's received a few messages.

  
The first is a bunch of heart emojis, which makes him grin. 

  
_oof i've got it bad_ , tryingforamazing says. _think maybe i'm in l**e_

  
Dan laughs.

  
_censoring it doesn't make it less true_ , he replies. _that's so cute tho. u gonna tell him???_

  
_NO_ , is the response. _too soon. no way._

  
"Big mood," Dan says aloud to himself, locking his phone and abandoning it on his pillow. It's 2am, which is early for him, and he still feels anxious in the pit of his stomach - unsettled, like he just stumbled off a rollercoaster. 

  
He ends up watching Ponyo in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, trying to baby himself until he feels better about the whole thing.

  
-

  
The next time he sees Phil, he makes an idle reference to getting dragged out to a bar with PJ.

  
It's a relief, but not as much as Dan had hoped it'd be. He's always been a little worried about the mysterious PJ, who Dan's never met but who seemingly lets Phil live in his flat at the gallery most days, giving out his clothes to people the guy doesn't even know. The closeness of their relationship has always been a worry in the back of Dan's head - a worry he'd pushed back, tried in vain to ignore.

  
So he's relieved, yeah, that Phil mentioned it to him unprompted, that it wasn't some big dark secret, but it doesn't help all that much. As much as he hates himself for it, it just opens up the old wounds of his mistrust of the relationship between Phil and PJ.  
Except that's his problem. His own securities, his fears, they're his own issue, so he doesn't mention it to Phil. He feels like voicing how he feels might make Phil think he really is that kind of partner, the kind that he desperately doesn't want to be, the kind that he worries his fear will drive him to be.

  
So he keeps it all inside. Bottled up, where it's safe. And Phil is perfect - Phil's utterly, wonderfully perfect, the funny embarrassed blush he gets when he tries to carelessly pay for condoms at the self serve checkout in the tiny Sainsbury's, the way he ties his shoelaces, his exhausted teddy bear look in the early morning before he's had three hundred cups of coffee that he needs to function.

  
Dan's happy. He can deal with the anxiety because it's the way his life's always been. He's always worried about something somehow. He's beyond used to it by now.

  
The posters he and Nix had put up make people happy. Dan sees people taking pictures of them before they get sluiced with rain - even Phil delightedly points out a row on the wall near the Spar on Oxford Road, gleeful on a rainy afternoon, sheets of water showing up in bus headlights, uncomfortably cold drips falling from Dan's too-small hood directly onto his face, much to his discomfort.

  
"This is awesome," Phil says, his whole face lit up like it's his birthday. 

  
Dan has to kiss him then - right there in the street, not even caring when he touches Phil's chest through his coat and his hands just get even wetter. God, the two of them kissing in the rain, it's unapologetically cliched. Dan would hate himself for it if he wasn't so happy.

  
"You're adorable," He says, breathing in the space between their lips. "You know that, right?"

  
"You might've mentioned it once or twice," Phil says, a little shakily, and kisses him again. 

  
It makes Dan want to drag him home, even though they have reservations to eat at this cute little bar neither of them have been to before.

  
"Food, come on," He says, more to himself to Phil, forcing himself to pull back. "Good food. And beer."

  
" _Beer_ ," Phil repeats, laughing. "Alright, hettie. I'm getting strawberry cider."

  
"Arsehole," Dan says, not meaning it in the slightest, kissing him one last quick time before they carry on walking, splashing through puddles that might ruin Dan's whole outfit if he wasn't wearing platforms.

  
"My bloody socks," Phil says, miserably.

  
"You should've walked round!"

  
"Nope," Phil says, and squeezes his hand. 

  
He doesn't quite say that avoiding the puddles would've involved letting go of Dan's hand and he hadn't been prepared to do it, but the implication is clear enough.

  
Dan loves him so much that it hurts. He loves him so much that it seems to fill his lungs until he can't breathe, light headed and dizzy with it. When he tramps through a puddle himself in the next moment and a splash of icy rainwater hits his sock, it hardly matters.

  
Not when he has love to keep him warm.

  
-

  
December sneaks up on him, somehow. Even though the streets have been glowing with decorations for weeks, it somehow gives him a little jolt when he's huddled in a seat on the tram and glances at the date on his phone and it really hits him that December and Christmas have come around again.

  
Dan cuts through the christmas markets one evening after work with something like purpose, eyes catching on the stall displays, wondering about gifts for Phil. There's the sparkly gem stall - or the stall selling bonsai trees.

  
He's so indecisive. He wants something good, something as good as Phil is. And then there's the thought of gifts for his mum, his grandma, something for Peri and Jess...

  
_feel like xmas was fun when ur parents used to sort it all out,_ he sends to Phil as he leaves the bustle of the markets, losing himself in the nearby streets.

_it's still fun_ , Phil sends back, with way too many Christmas tree emojis. _are u nearly here?_

  
_kind of,_ Dan sends back, hurrying across the road in a gap between cars.

  
_if i kiss u under the mistletoe will that make christmas fun_

  
Dan laughs, feeling himself flush, probably looking utterly mad to any passers-by, but he doesn't care.

  
_not sure_ , he replies. _worth testing out tho_

  
Phil kisses him at the back door. His nose and cheeks are icy cold in the December chill, hair probably ugly and windswept, and the bins in the alleyway are much too close and smell terrible, but kissing Phil still makes him feel wonderful. Lighter than air. 

  
"Liar," He says when he pulls back. 

  
"Mm?"

  
"No mistletoe."

  
Dan kisses him again anyway, just because he really has to. Phil's warm, t-shirt soft under Dan's cold fingertips, and when they break off Dan just has to hug him, leech some of that warmth away like a particularly snuggly parasite.

  
"Stop," Phil says, laughing, when Dan breathes on the side of his neck all heavily like a panting dog. "Can we go in, please, my nipples are gonna fall off."

  
Even so, he takes a moment to let go. The two of them traipse upstairs, Phil talking about the gallery event later that afternoon. Dan's dreading it a little - ever since he and Phil officially became a thing, the other gallery people have treated him with this weird awkward distance, like they're worried he'll run to Phil and tell him about them smoking in the downstairs toilet when it's cold. Dan absolutely _has_ told Phil all about that, but Phil had just laughed and said he already knew, so it's not like it matters. 

  
It's not like Phil's some unreasonable ogre of a manager who'd actually yell at anyone ever. But Sue and the others tiptoe around Dan now like he is, and try as he might not to take it personally he really kind of does.

  
"It's like being at school and having your dad as the teacher or something," Dan says later, sprawled out on the gallery bed in a bathrobe. Phil's drying his hair with a towel, and Dan's vaguely, idly admiring the shift of the muscles in his back as he moves, the shape of his shoulderblades.

  
"It's like _what_?" Phil says, pulling a face. "Please don't say that."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"You know what I mean," He says. "I'm like, unless you're pissing on an installation Phil literally doesn't care, but they're so _concerned_."

  
Phil rolls his eyes at that, grinning.

  
"I'm the big scary manager."

  
"Apparently, yeah."

  
They're quiet for a moment.

  
"I feel bad," Phil says, throwing his damp towel over his shoulder. "I mean - everyone knowing we're - well, us - it's made stuff awkward for you here now. We could've just - just, like, not told gallery people, I dunno."

  
"What?" Dan says. "Stop, oh my God. I want people to know. God, I really do."

  
"Oh yeah?" Phil says, small uncertain smile on his face. "Want all that clout from dating a manager?"

  
"Shut up," Dan says. "It's 'cause you're - you're gorgeous. Obviously," He adds, rolling his eyes at himself. "So I want everyone to know." He pauses. "Your personality's rubbish, but-"

  
"Oh fuck off," Phil says, laughing, and rushes over to tickle him.

  
-

  
Working gallery events when he and Phil are together is surreal.

  
It feels like being at high school, or something - those dreadful times when they inevitably got sorted into groups by a particularly sadistic teacher. Dan always invariably ended up working with people who either absolutely loathed him or thought he was utterly lame and tragic and didn't see the point in communicating with him - prefering to communicate with each other in an awful language of eye twitches and eyebrows raising to indicate just how pathetic Dan was without having to use words.

  
Nothing much has changed here. Not that Sue and the others dislike him, or anything, it's just that whenever he and Phil interact he catches them just making eye contact with each other, silently judging him about it. Not that he's ashamed to be with Phil - the exact opposite, in fact - it just makes him feel uncomfortable, more awkward than usual in his scratchy ugly gallery clothes.

  
Dan fills his tray with glasses of champagne and keeps to himself and smiles at guests, losing himself looking at the art. This time it's a display of a lot of pieces that at first Dan thought might just be abstract messes, so to speak, smears of yellow and green and blue - still beautiful, of course. Dan doesn't have anything against abstract art. It's only when he's across the room and the light catches one of the canvases a certain way that it clicks into place.

  
"It's spring," He says, softly.

  
A hand touches his wrist, soft and light, and Dan knows before he turns that it's Phil, wearing a hilarious suit with a star print that makes him look both ridiculous and ridiculously handsome.

  
"What was that, sorry?"

  
"The paintings," Dan says, feeling his shoulders relax just at Phil's presence. "It's spring, isn't it? Like - nature. The countryside. I thought it was just like abstract or whatever but I can see it, can't you?"

  
Phil looks at him, smile small and secretive, lighting up his face from the inside.

  
"To be honest I don't know," He says. "I hadn't really thought about it. I like the colours and, like, the texture of the paint."

  
Dan smiles at him, full of fondness.

  
"You should paint," He says, and means it. "I'll buy you some oil paints. That's how you get that texture, isn't it?"

  
"I can't paint," Phil protests, but there's no heart in it.

  
"Anyone can paint," Dan says. "You just need paint. And brushes."

  
"And talent."

  
"Shut up," Dan says, fondly. "How do you think people who are good at painting get good? They practice. I bet anyone here would say so."

  
"Ok, get the paints," Phil says, grinning so fondly that it almost hurts, almost makes his insides shiver like a shard of ice just slipped down his throat.

  
"I will," Dan says, and then Phil gets waylaid by a woman in a gauzy, pretty dark blue dress, and Dan has no choice but to circulate the room again with a little plate of vol-au-vents cobbled together from supplies from the nearby Co-op.

  
Later that night, Phil nods off on the tram to Dan's house, hand marooned on Dan's thigh, slivers of his eyelashes on his cheeks visible from Dan's angle.  
Dan breathes slowly, gently, painfully aware of how much each breath jogs his shoulder, even though he knows logically that the way the tram judders every so often is more likely to wake Phil up than the tidelike rise and fall of his shoulder.

  
He'd do anything for Phil. He knows that, simple and easy as breathing, as blinking. It scares him, a little. It scares him to give himself up so completely - but he guesses that's what being in love is. It's an endless trust fall and having to believe that the other person will be there to catch you.

  
Dan really thinks Phil will be. Gently, barely breathing, he turns and kisses him on the head, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. He wants to bottle this for an eternity, the darkness of the world beyond the tram windows, someone playing music behind them in the carriage, a woman reading a newspaper, nobody noticing that something wonderful is happening before their eyes - that someone is letting themselves be vulnerable to Dan.

  
And he's scared but more than that - he's exhilarated.

  
-

  
He has a risky date idea.

  
"You're mad," Nix says, flatly, when he tells them. "Is this what love does to people? Makes them stupid? Couldn't be me."

  
Dan thinks of the person Nix brings into the cafe sometimes and the way they smile at them, like the sun shines out of their eyes. He doesn't say anything, though. It's none of his business.

  
"I just think it'd be nice," He says instead. "He loves street art, and -"

  
"And he's not gonna think it's weird when you just drag him to a derelict building?"

  
Because that's Dan's plan, and he knows it's mad but he doesn't care - he's gonna bring Phil here, to the factory roof. They're gonna sit and watch what they can see of the stars through the light pollution and watch the trains juddering by on the train tracks below, each yellow-lit window a slice of someone else's life just sliding by, everyone part of their own individual enormous universe.

  
He thinks it'll be perfect. Even if it is mad.

  
"It's unique," Dan says, a little defensively. "Look, I went through all the shitty boring motions in my last relationship and the guy was a total arsehole. Phil's - he's -" Dan swallows, not ready to expand in detail on quite what Phil is to anyone, least of all Nix and their highly judgemental eyebrows. "He deserves better than - than onion rings at 'Spoons."

  
"God," Nix says, in a voice far too world-weary and cynical for their age. "Everyone deserves better than that."

  
-

  
"Dan," Phil says, when it comes to Dan actually bringing him up to the metal-covered back door of the factory. "What is this?"

  
"Oh, it opens," Dan says, giving the cover a shove with his shoulder. The door opens a crack, then more when he shoves it again.

  
"That's not what I meant," Phil says, hesitantly. "Is this surprise illegal? Isn't this, like, breaking and entering?"

  
"No," Dan says, to the first question. "And I dunno. I think it's owned by the council so, like, I guess it depends how much you love the government."

  
"God, fuck them."

  
"Well, yeah," Dan says, laughing at him. He tangles their hands together. "Just trust me."

  
-

  
Phil walks around the main floor of the factory with reverence, slow careful footsteps making the old floorboards creak. By the light of Dan's little keyring torch he examines the graffiti that covers the walls and windows, paint catching weirdly in the light like crime scene photographs.

  
He looks exactly the same as he does when he's walking around the gallery. He's careful and quiet and thoughtful, fingers touching his chin, eyes clouded over like he's in a different place, lost in that wonderful brain of his.

  
"This is really cool," He says, softly. "How long have you been coming here?"

  
Dan shrugs. It's easy to lie in torchlight somehow - the grainy quality of the light hiding enough of the telltale flush of dishonesty in his cheeks.

  
"I was just curious about the painting," He says, which is true enough. "Like, on the windows. And one day I saw that the door was open, I dunno."

  
"That's mad," Phil says, but he sounds awestruck. "There could've been someone lurking in here with, like, a massive knife."

  
"But there wasn't," Dan says, and laughs when Phil does, even though he doesn't know what he's laughing at. "What?"

  
"You're secretly the most reckless guy I know, you know that?"

  
"You must know some pretty boring people then," Dan says, grinning.

  
"No," Phil says, and kisses him. His lips are cold because it's cold outside - it's not much better in here, but he'd told Phil to wrap up, and he's actually wearing gloves this time, and even a hat. He didn't want the evening to be ruined by frostbite.

  
The part of the roof where he and Nix usually sit is kind of terrifying, so he's chosen a more secluded spot for him and Phil, a flat place on the corner of the building that opens out of a window in the roof, like an attic gable - maybe part of the building was apartments once, Dan doesn't know. It's sheltered from the wind and looks out back across the train tracks, stretching away from them to Deansgate, leading out of the city.

  
Dan laid out blankets about an hour ago and shoved his fairy lights from his room in a jar and put them up there too. It's beyond ridiculous, the most stupid thing he's ever done.

  
"Oh, fuck off," Phil says, laughing, when he sees it. "You're not real. Shut up."

  
"Do you like it?" Dan asks, uncertainly, not sure if Phil's laughing out of pure horror, if his disbelief is about to morph into a breakup.

  
"Of course I do," Phil says, holding his hand tight. "Is the roof gonna collapse?"

  
"No," Dan says. "I think this used to be a terrace or something. The Victorians knew what was up with architecture."

  
"Whatever you say," Phil says, staring at him like he just watched Dan press each star individually into the sky. He pulls him close, nose touching cold nose. "What do we do if the police come?"

  
Dan's laugh is a quiet, private exhale against Phil's lips.

  
"We run," He says.

  
-

  
It's a night he thinks he'll always remember. The warmth of Phil next to him and the coldness of his breath on the air, the two of them speaking in secret whispers and watching the trains go by. It'd been everything Dan had wanted it to be.

  
When the sun had started coming up, pink and gold shooting through the sky, Phil had been utterly mesmerised by it all, the light glinting off his glasses.  
Phil had watched the sunrise and Dan had watched Phil. It was preferable that way. The play of emotions on his face was more dear to Dan than the purplish clouds that blew softly across the city sky, golden-orange light bathing Phil's skin in the most beautiful light, shadows from nearby buildings cutting a stripe of darkness across his face.

  
Dan had watched Phil, had buried his face in Phil's shoulder and breathed in the smell of him and thought, _no matter what happens at least I had this. At least we had this._

  
They climb down in the early hours, the pair of them exhausted and delirious. Dan buys Phil coffee and hash browns at McDonald's. They eat outside the library, throwing potato bits to the pigeons, and then Phil leads Dan to the gallery with a murmured, "Let's go home."

  
There's something beautiful in that, too. Even if Dan has a headache and his back feels sore and stiff from sitting in the same position on the roof for too long, there's something unspeakably lovely in walking hand in hand with Phil through streets decorated for Christmas, passing stone-faced commuters on their way to long days at the office and knowing that the only long day Dan has ahead of him is one spent in the warm, safe haven of that rusted gallery bed, the white sheets protecting them, their hideaway from the world. He knows without even asking that Phil will lock the door and turn his phone off, that he'll gather Dan in his arms and kiss him like he's precious, like he's the most important thing in the world, that Dan will fall asleep with them touching in as many ways as they can, arms and legs and hands, Phil's face pushed into the crook of Dan's neck. He can't be a comfortable pillow, he knows that, but Phil loves to sleep that way.

  
He'll sleep however Phil wants to. And he knows they will. And maybe that's what love is, he thinks. Yeah, there's the unknown, there's the fear of rejection, of taking that jump with nobody to catch you. But maybe love is also the certainty of moments like this. Of knowing that there are good things to come.  
Dan smiles up at the newly minted blue sky, closes his eyes against the wintry sunshine, and feels like everything in the world is lit up, just for him.

  
They sleep all day.

  
-

  
It does bother him a little that he's never seen Phil's real flat.

  
He turns thoughts of the reasons why over and over his head like a penny flipping trick. Maybe the gallery flat is Phil's real place - but why wouldn't he say? He always refers to it as PJ's flat, but Dan's never actually met PJ, has never known him to be there, hasn't seen any evidence that the flat belongs to him beyond some borrowed clothes that Phil said were his, dug out of a drawer under the bed.

  
And then there are thoughts of that snapshot of Dan's life without Phil on Canal Street, him and an unknown dark haired guy standing close together, a night out he hadn't mentioned until after it happened. Phil doesn't even like nights out all that much - or he says he doesn't, preferring less crowded bars with nibbles than, like, oppressive, eardrum-thumping nightclubs. Dan doesn't know why he'd avoid nights out with him and then be really keen on them with the faceless PJ.

  
He doesn't think Phil's secretly in a relationship with PJ. He doesn't, doesn't think about it at night in bed in the gaps of dead air between podcasts when he can't sleep, doesn't dwell on it when he's washing plates and filling the dishwasher at work.

  
It'd just - it'd make a lot of things make sense, that's all, if Phil really was seeing someone else. Dan dwells on another scenario in which Phil does have his own flat after all and it's some cosy nest he shares with a completely different partner.

  
The thought makes his insides writhe like snakes. He thinks about it too often, obsesses over it, but ultimately keeps it to himself because he knows that all of this is just his insecurity manifesting itself into stupid scenarios that are wildly exaggerated. He couldn't stand to hear the platitudes, to see the horrifying looks of pity on people's faces. Poor Dan, they'd think. Even when he's got his depression under control his anxiety still fucks it up for him, doesn't it?

  
So no, he doesn't mention it to anyone. He just enjoys each day with Phil and ignores every doubt that flits across his mind like something moving in the corner of his eye in a darkened room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter because the last update was so late 💖 just wanna say the biggest thank you to anyone who's read this, or left kudos or commented. Seeing people enjoy this is what keeps me writing, and I appreciate it so so much 💖
> 
> Andrea, you're a gem 💎

As the days get shorter and shorter, there's more cover of darkness to paint in. 

  
Nix's new thing is painting flowers, the most beautiful blossoms created with what look like the simplest strokes of paint. Dan will never understand how they do it, but he loves it.

  
"Old people have killed the planet," is what they say when he asks them about the flowers. "Probably one day painted flowers are gonna be the only ones left."

  
Sometimes, Dan thinks, Nix is so intelligent and perceptive that he feels like he just woke up, muggy-headed, and needs like four cups of coffee to be sharp enough to power through the conversation. They really do make him incredibly hopeful for the future generation, that's all he can say.

  
Nix isn’t the only one painting new things. Dan buys different colours one evening after work, much to the art shop guy's delight, getting his usual raspberry pink as a fallback but also snow white and gunmetal grey. He tries painting clouds, tries to make them wispy, and even if they go wrong he finds he doesn't hate it - the drops of paint falling look like raindrops. It just adds to it, really.

  
"That's cool," Nix says, and he knows they're just being kind but the praise makes him glow. 

  
He doesn't have the heart to tell them that the reason he's graduated from words to clouds is that he doesn't want to expose himself and his feelings anymore. Painting his thoughts on a wall for commuters to see still feels like telling someone, like letting other people know that he's an idiot who doubts Phil. Nix would see through it right away.

  
One night he paints a particularly big cloud dangerously close to Shudehill, a stone's throw from the road in a backstreet full of bins. On the way to work he cuts through there to look at it in the cold morning light and finds that someone's added a delicate little umbrella in red, a shield from the rain. It can only be Nix. He doesn't know when they found the time to do that without him noticing but he snaps a photo and posts it to his blog when he gets to work all the same.

  
_i don't think my umbrella's working_ , he writes in the tags.

  
It gets a few likes and reblogs over the course of the day - not that Dan checks obsessively, he just scrolls through his notifications the few times he nips to the bathroom. He spends the rest of the day surgically attached to his coffee cup, which Peri keeps refilling without having to be asked. Jess isn't in because she had a last minute assignment to finish, and just hearing about that made Dan suddenly intensely grateful to not have any assignments to worry about. It was that kind of thing that had really finished him off when he'd attempted university.

  
It's been a strangely slow afternoon despite the festive season being in full swing – so slow in fact that they get to sit down with their coffee for once, watching people bustle past the windows.

  
"That’s why I never bothered,” Per says. She’s vaping, even though she technically isn’t meant to, and Dan wrinkles his nose when she exhales the weirdly sweet vapour. “With uni, I mean."

  
Dan nods.

  
"I tried," He says. "And - just couldn't. Like -" He shrugs. "I dunno."

  
He'd felt like he was drowning back then, under the weight of assignments and new people and stern faced lecturers and just how clever other people sounded when they raised their hands to make comments or ask questions in the lecture hall. One of Dan's main faults aside from his anxiety and, like, executive dysfunction, or whatever it was his therapist had called it, is comparing himself to other people. It's like an endless game of spot the difference going on in the back of his mind, and the side that he's on is always conspicuously lacking.

  
Not that he wants to tell Peri that. He's long since recovered from his feelings of shame and guilt about dropping out but sometimes when he walks too far down Oxford Road and sees the beautiful old university buildings and the achingly trendy and fashionable international students, he gets a little ache in his chest. It's like the echo of an old injury that healed long ago but still has an odd little buzz to it sometimes, the way war wounds can predict the rain.

  
It can't really ever escape his notice that he never moved back home after he dropped out. He'd just moved out of student accommodation and moved this way and that across the city. Then he'd met his ex, and...

  
Well, there's no need to do a full recap.

  
He looks down at his phone, tapping on the Tumblr app purely out of habit, and notices that he has a few messages.

  
One's from one of his mutuals sending him a gifset from some show she loves. Dan appreciates that all of the actors are really cute but her keysmashes and internal screaming over the main girl in the show are kind of lost on him.

  
_too gay for this_ , he messages back, with a crying laughing emoji. Just this once.

  
The other is from tryingforamazing. They've linked Dan's own post with a little sad face emoji under it. 

  
_things still bad?_

  
_oh yeah babey_ , Dan replies, deciding that flippancy is the only way to deal with how he's feeling.

  
Another sad face. _have you talked to him about it yet?_

  
Dan swallows. The question sits there in the chat, accusing him.

  
He locks his phone and places it face down on the table.

  
-

  
He doesn't find out Phil's address on purpose.

  
The night before, Phil had kissed him in the kitchen of his own poky, daft little flat, and Dan had gripped onto the shabby countertop tightly, nails digging in, because Phil's mouth and hands and the sound of his desperate, hiccupping breaths were enough to make him feel like he was about to float away, untethered. That had been a second, though, a second before the tension of the day had melted out of him and he'd pushed his hands into Phil's hair and touched him every which way he could, rasp of stubble and the softness of the skin at the back of his neck, the unbearably fascinating feeling of strength in his wonderfully broad shoulders.

  
Later, when they'd been dozing, Dan had awkwardly pulled a discarded sweatshirt on that had been abandoned by the bed and let Phil wrap him in his arms, head pillowed on his bare chest. His lips were kiss stung and he felt bruised somehow, even though he also felt brilliant. Amazing.

  
Being with Phil really wasn't like being with anyone else, he thought. Even if he hadn't said it - even if neither of them had said it - there was love there in the softness of his hands, the gentleness of his touch, the vulnerable fluttering of his eyelashes.

  
It made Dan feel like Phil could see inside him, right inside his head, like peering into a wishing well and catching the glints of coins far below under the glimmering water.

  
There was still something terrifying about being seen like that, but something strangely liberating too.

  
In the scheme of things, he really should've expected it to go wrong sooner than it actually did.

  
-

  
At first it’s just a nice idea – a half-baked plan, a thought of going to Phil's flat to surprise him. It doesn't feel like an invasion of privacy, not really - a flat's a flat, it's hardly tantamount to reading someone's diary. He sees the address on a letter pinned to the noticeboard in the gallery store room - Phil Lester, 4 Lanister Gardens - just for anybody to see and take a photo of on their phone.

  
Perhaps taking the photo had been a little weird. Dan admits that. But he's tired of wondering - tired of the worry dogging his footsteps, the big blank space in Phil's life that Dan isn't privy to looming over their dates and their hand holding and their nights lying close and entangled in bed.

  
He’s on the fence about it, at first. They’re preparing the gallery for its latest event - Phil hadn’t really needed Dan, but Dan's off work today so he’d accompanied him, providing coffee and kisses in the wasteland of dull preparation. 

  
Dan washes his hands, pulling faces at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looks tired as always, but at least his hair's ok.

  
He’s looking up Phil's address on maps as he ducks out of the bathroom, shouldering the door open. 

  
If he hadn’t paused to get directions he would’ve just gone straight back upstairs to the gallery and everything would’ve been fine.

  
“…PJ’s gonna be there,” A voice echoes up the stairwell. There’s a chill drifting up the stairs – they must be smoking out of the fire exit door. Making a mental note to tell Phil, Dan starts to go back upstairs when one of them says his name.

  
“Dan's gonna be there, though,” Another voice says. “Yikes.”

  
“What?” The first voice says. “He’s lovely. Don’t you like him?”

  
“It’s not that. Dan’s great. It’s just – it’s _shitty_ , that’s all. The whole Phil and PJ thing.”

  
Dan feels like the floor shifts under his feet, like he’s about to fall flat on his face, all balance gone from the world.

  
“What _thing_? There’s no thing, who told you that?”

  
“Nobody.” An exhale. “Look, all I’m saying is we all thought Phil and PJ were a couple until Dan showed up. And that’s weird.”

  
“Phil's not like that though.”

  
“Isn’t he? He has a _bed_ in his _office_.”

  
There’s more, but it gets swallowed up by the white noise in his head. Dan walks up the stairs feeling dazed, dreamlike, like nothing in the world can connect with him anymore.

  
He pushes through the door into the gallery space without really noticing his surroundings, so a gentle touch to his elbow makes him jump.

  
“Hey, wanna get some lunch?” Phil asks. He’s so handsome, so – so _Phil_ , and Dan can hardly look at him. “What’s wrong?”

  
“Nothing,” He says, forcing himself to smile. It isn’t enough to stop Phil from looking worried, so he says it again. “Nothing! Peri called, that’s all. They’re swamped at the café, I’m gonna have to go in.”

  
“Oh,” Phil says. “D'you want me to walk you?”

  
“Nah, it’s ok,” Dan says. “I need to be quick.”

  
“Ok,” Phil says. “Call me later?”

  
Dan nods, throat tight. When Phil leans in to kiss his cheek his whole body seems to tense, like he’s turning to stone.

  
-

  
_mfreaking out_ , Dan sends when he’s on the tram home.

  
tryingforamazing isn’t active. The chat just stays the same, his own message sitting there, mocking him.

  
He’s being irrational. He’s being stupid. Idle gossip has nothing to do with him and Phil – the people who work in the gallery don’t know anything about them.

  
Dan stares out of the window as the world slides by beyond, sober commuters out getting lunch in suits, and tells himself he isn’t gonna cry.

  
Lying to himself has always been one of his strengths.

  
-

  
The knowledge of Phil's address sits on his shoulders like a dead weight.

  
His plan to surprise Phil, to take flowers or something, morphs into something ugly during his silent hours at work the next day, washing plates, entirely lost in his own head.

  
He'll go to Phil's flat, yeah, that part's still the same. But it’s less of a romantic surprise and more of a checkup, a way to assuage his fears once and for all. 

  
He’s gonna throw the curtains back to let the light in, and hope to God the shadows lurking in his periphery are just that – shadows.

  
He’s terrified. His heart’s thudding fearfully, palms uncomfortably damp. He wants to surprise his boyfriend, is that so bad? He has a four pack of that raspberry cider Phil likes clanking in his rucksack, fingernails drumming agitatedly against the back of the empty tram seat in front of him. 

  
Chances are, he tells himself, he'll go to Phil's place and Phil will greet him with a smile. He'll kiss him and they'll end up watching Netflix and ordering pizza.

  
That’s all he's doing. He’s going to visit his boyfriend. It’s a nice surprise, something people in regular relationships do.

  
Which they are. They're in a regular relationship. So why are Dan's palms sweating as he sits there, his scalp prickling the way it used to when he had to present in front of a lecture theatre? Why does he feel like he's doing something underhand, something sneaky?

  
He might not be in, he tells himself, following the directions on maps down an unfamiliar road lined with overgrown hedges. He might be at the gallery. He might be out.

  
Part of him hopes so. Part of him feels this impending sense of doom or something, like the grey storm clouds gathering on the horizon between the skyscrapers exist between his ears, lightning ready to fork down like the darting tongue of a snake, thoughts echoing like thunderclaps.

  
Phil's flat turns out to be sandwiched between a chip shop and an independent bookshop that has cute little seats in the window, glowing in the waning light. Dan won't ever get used to the fact that night falls so early these days, but he can't tell if its sunset coming or the impending storm. He pauses on the pavement over the road, buffeted this way and that by fellow pedestrians - people with places to be and people to see, and just Dan standing there, crippled with guilt and fear and anxiety, staring at the door with the panel of buzzers outside that leads to Phil's flat. His eyes scan the upper windows - he's really never felt more like a stalker than he does at this moment.

  
There's a moment when he intends to leave - he's just gonna go, get back to the Metrolink and go home - maybe play some Call of Duty mindlessly for a few hours in his pyjamas with a comforting cup of tea, or wrap himself in a blanket burrito and sleep.

  
And then he hears the faintest echo of Phil's voice over the rush of buses between them, road full of traffic that masks his presence, and he's helpless to do anything but watch as Phil walks down the street, smile bright and wide, arm in arm with a dark-haired guy that Dan doesn't recognise for a moment but after a second of frozen-still, wide-eyed staring, he realises it's - it's the art shop guy of all people, their heads uncomfortably close together, laughing at some unknown joke as Phil digs his keys out of his jeans pocket to let the two of them in.

  
They clearly know each other well. It's obvious even from this far away. Dan feels like his two worlds are colliding in the worst possible way, and he turns on his heel and leaves before he has to watch the two of them disappearing into the flat, entirely entangled in each other.

  
-

  
Phil calls him. Phil texts him. Phil sends him links to funny tweets on Facebook.

  
Dan turns all of his notifications off and sleeps for what feels like two days straight. He feels like he's in a fairytale, sleeping beauty in her tower with the vines and the brambles growing all around, trapped by foliage and waiting to be woken from slumber with a kiss.

  
Except it's not gonna happen. Dan has to wake himself up. He has to become accustomed to a world in which Phil won't kiss him (or hug him, or gently push his hair back when it falls forwards, or touch Dan's arm as he passes to make coffee, half asleep and dead to the world but still wanting to connect somehow in some small way).

  
He's overreacting, he thinks. But if he is, why wouldn't Phil invite him to his flat? Why would they pass the art shop all the time and he wouldn't mention that he knows the guy who works there? Why would they only spend time together in the gallery flat (the gallery flat that belongs to the mysterious PJ - is he in on it? Are he and Phil together too?)?

  
Phil's a closed book when it comes to some things, like Dan's ex was. And Dan's ex was just tolerating him, just putting up with his awkward affections and desires for physical contact, was secretly repulsed by Dan every damn day, head full of thoughts of the new guy that had turned his head, all while Dan was utterly miserable trying to get the guy to love him again, and now it's happening all over again with Phil - Phil, who he trusted, who touched him like it mattered, who he'd shared so many wonderful moments with, odes to his love painted across the town, scattered like a breadcrumb trail through a forest.

  
It was all nonsense again. All just Dan making a fool of himself at the top of his lungs, like always. He really should've seen it coming.

  
-

  
When they argue about it, finally - when it all comes out - it's. Astoundingly awful.

  
Phil comes over to Dan's flat. It really was only a matter of time, what with Dan ignoring every form of communication with him and actually missing a gallery evening, calling the main desk instead of calling Phil to tell them that he couldn't make it.

  
Dan's been absolutely on edge the past day, expecting Phil to storm into work - dreading it, hiding in the stockroom counting how many tins of chickpeas they have, or else lurking in the kitchen washing plates endlessly.

  
But Phil doesn't come in, and Dan makes his way home with this cold weight of dread in his stomach, of the storm that hasn't come yet, the axe blade yet to fall.

  
It's only when his buzzer goes at about six o'clock that he realises it's about to happen.

  
"Dan," Phil's voice crackles down the line. He sounds strained, desperate - somewhere beyond him a siren wails. "Can I come in?"

  
Dan doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want Phil to come in, he's terrified - hands shaking, he can already tell he's moments away from crying like an idiot.

  
He doesn't say anything - just buzzes him in and waits, feeling like he's about to throw up. He's so scared, skin vibrating with stress and anxiety, and he's sure he looks a mess - he'd just sort of fallen into the shower after work and thrown on some pyjamas that he's pretty sure he's worn three times this week.

  
Not that it matters how he looks. With trembling hands he opens the front door and stands there until he hears Phil's footsteps on the stairs, then he holds the door open and looks down at the ugly beige carpet in the hall, staring at it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world and holding his breath when Phil passes so he can't smell him. Wisps of his aftershave still drift across his nose and the smell alone reminds him of a thousand good times, a thousand happy memories.

  
When he shuts the door with a click and turns to look at Phil, it's all he can do not to rush over there and fall into his arms like an idiot. He looks tired, eyes purpled round the edges behind his glasses. He's wearing this huge sludge coloured jumper of his that Dan's borrowed a thousand times before, thrown on over his pyjamas because it's soft and cosy and it feels like having someone's arms around you - having Phil's arms around him, the smell of him in the air all day.

  
"I thought you were dead," Phil says. Dan bites his fingernail, hugging his arms to himself like he can protect himself from what's about to happen. "Like, if this is your attempt to ghost me then. Then thanks, because I was really worried."

  
Dan swallows around the lump in his throat.

  
"I know there's someone else," He says, because biting the bullet is better than just standing here and waiting for everything to fall apart by itself.

  
"What?" Phil says.

  
"I know," Dan says. He can barely look at him, his eyes filling up already which is so stupid. He dashes the tears away angrily. "I - I always thought it was weird that you never wanted me to come to your flat and I - I never said anything 'cause I thought it was just me, you know, just an anxiety thing, like God fucking knows I've got trust issues but like -" He swallows and forces himself to look at Phil's face, the lines of his shoulders and God, Dan loves him so much that it hurts. He's so fucking stupid. "I saw your address at the gallery and, like. I thought it'd be nice to come and surprise you. I dunno. Whatever."

  
"Dan-"

  
"Anyway when I got there I saw you with this guy, and I-" He swallows, tears hot on his face even though somehow his voice is steady. "I'd seen you out with him before and I - I never said anything 'cause - 'cause again, trust issues. But like. I couldn't think of any other reason why you'd be so cagey about your flat, like...you've been to mine a thousand times, I - I dunno."

  
There's silence for one long, excruciating moment.  
"Why didn't you just talk to me?" Phil asks. "If you'd talked to me I would've - we could've-"

  
"So you're not denying it?"

  
Phil laughs, short and humourless.

  
"I mean, it's bullshit. There's just you, just - only ever you. I can't - you really think I'd treat you like that?"

  
"I don't know," Dan says, quietly. "I don't know."

  
"'Cause if you - if you do then - then this whole thing's just a terrible idea, isn't it," Phil says. His eyes are glinting, full of tears. "Like - like, if you don't trust me then. I dunno."

  
"I _want_ to trust you," Dan says. "I want to, but - but the guy, and - and the whole flat thing - you have to understand how it looks."

  
"The guy was probably PJ," Phil says. "He's one of my best friends and - and yeah, I guess if you saw us I could see how you'd - you'd get the wrong idea, but he's just my friend. He's _straight_ , for God's sake."

  
"And the flat thing?" Dan asks, desperately. "What - what was that?"

  
Phil looks at him then. He looks devastated. He looks small, somehow - it's wrong for someone who's so big in Dan's life, whose presence in Dan's thoughts is so large, always.

  
"What really happened when you hurt yourself?" He asks, softly.

  
Dan's heart drops.

  
"What?"

  
"And - and when that guy took your bag, why - you weren't just walking home, were you," Phil says. "I could tell you were lying but I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to pry-"

  
"Then don't," Dan says.

  
"I don't want to!" Phil says, vehemently. "But you see what I mean, you see - I don't want to know this shit but - but I could ask and I could insist to know-"

  
"How is it in any way the same as you being so cagey about your flat?"

  
"I'm not cagey-" Phil says, raising his voice, then stops. Dan thinks he's gonna be sick. "All you had to do was ask, that's it, and I would've told you-"

  
"Well then, what? Why?"

  
"My brother," Phil says, and he's red-faced as he admits it. "I live with my brother and his girlfriend, alright? Like a teenage boy, like - like an _idiot_ , and I didn't want you to think I was lame so I didn't tell you and I didn't want to take you back there because - because Martyn's so embarrassing, like, big brothers are always big brothers, and - and that's _it_ , alright?"

  
"Why would I have thought that was lame?" Dan asks. "Why would that have bothered me at all?"

  
"I don't know," Phil says, breathing heavily. "Probably the same reason you won't tell me the truth either."

  
Dan deflates then. He feels so stupid, so exhausted, so guilty for doubting Phil the way he had.

  
"It's not like that," He says, weakly, all the fight gone from his limbs like a snuffed out candle. "It's not that I don't trust you-"

  
"Except you thought I was cheating on you," Phil says, flatly. His voice is shaking. "You thought I had - had some boyfriend at home and I was stringing you along."

  
"I just - I find it hard, I - my ex-"

  
"I'm not him," Phil says. When he blinks a tear crawls out of his eye, snail-slow. "I totally get it, Dan, I really do, he - he was a dickhead, alright, we all have exes like that. But I'm not him. Not everyone is like him."

  
"I didn't say that," Dan says, wondering how this can have gone so badly wrong so quickly. "I didn't mean that you were like him."

  
"But that's why," Phil says. His Adam’s apple bobs and he wipes his cheek with his sleeve. "You don't trust me." He closes his eyes for a moment, and Dan's crying too. "We can't keep doing this if - if you don't trust me. Like, that's the number one thing in a relationship, you know? We have to be able to trust each other."

  
Dan should protest. He should fight for this, he knows he should. He tries to touch Phil's arm, to comfort him, and Phil shakes him off.

  
"No, no, it's ok," Phil says, even though it obviously isn't. "I'll. I'll call you, alright?"

  
He leaves. Dan just stands to one side and lets him go and feels like the worst person in the world, like a crushed piece of chewing gum pressed deep into the pavement.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the sadness continues 😔 thank you all so much for the lovely feedback 💖💖 big shout out to Andrea as always 💖💖 an Icon™️

Essentially, due to his own stupidity, in a matter of days Dan goes from being somebody's boyfriend to being nobody's boyfriend at all.

  
He doesn't tell anyone. He can't stand the thought of explaining the situation to Jess and Peri - particularly Peri, who Dan knows would look at him and somehow be able to read everything he'd done wrong or handled badly.

  
He just throws himself into painting, spending nearly every night roaming the streets with Nix.

  
They cover the outside of Victoria station with posters, which is a risky endeavour considering the cameras everywhere. It’s strangely deserted and rainy at 4 in the morning and they have their faces covered, wisps of hair from Dan's dreaded mask trailing over the back of his neck and making him shudder.

  
Afterwards, Dan walks through the city centre in the cold and the rain, breath freezing in the air, feeling like the last person left alive after an apocalypse. Rain gathers in the tram lines, puddles glimmering under the yellowed street lamps. Everything is deserted and eerily silent – Tuesday isn’t a popular night out day, so there's no thump from nightclubs, just the occasional person hurrying by on the other side of the road, hood up and backpack pulled up high, same as Dan.

  
Dan shoves his cold hands deep into his pockets, nose and mouth stinging in the frigid air. He feels like the cold's inside him too, icy fingers of winter creeping under his skin, blood in his veins running glacier-slow. Even his thoughts are cold – he feels like there’s nothing warm inside him anymore.

  
He knows it's no good to be so useless after a breakup. Especially a breakup of a relationship so short. The whole thing had been over in the blink of an eye, a quick fun rollercoaster ride, too highly anticipated and gone too soon. It's not like he's gone full _Bella Swan_ , or anything - no montage of the winter months passing for him, no dip into depression. Dan looks his tired reflection in the eyes and takes his medication every morning, same as always.

  
He can feel how this would've once utterly destroyed him, how he would've fallen and kept falling, and how his tablets cushion him from a deeper hurt. That’s something, at least, but that doesn't mean it isn't awful.

  
That doesn't mean he doesn't play it over and over and over in his head, an endless reel in his head stuck on a loop.

  
_I'm not him_ , Phil had said. The look on his face as he'd spoken looms large behind Dan's eyelids when he closes them, waits for him in quiet moments. _Not everyone is like him_.

  
Dan hadn't meant to imply that he was. He can see why it came off like that, why Phil might take it personally and he feels horribly, unbelievably guilty about it, but he feels helpless against what happened in the past. The face of it all.

  
Dan knows that not every guy is like his ex. Too late he realises he did exactly what people had warned him against - he'd let his past relationship ruin what he had with Phil.

  
Dan had just been so worried about losing him that he'd - well, he'd fucked up and actually lost him after all.

  
Beyond all of it – all of the self pity and guilt – he wishes he'd just bit the bullet and told Phil everything. He should've been brave and explained his fears instead of bottling them up and letting them fester. They could’ve talked it all through together, and things wouldn’t have ended so badly.

  
It’s too late for any of that now. Just endless _should-haves_ and _could-haves_ , hanging around his neck like dead weights.

  
-

  
Phil doesn't call.

  
Days pass and he doesn't call. Dan walks through the Northern Quarter with a nervous skip in his step. He avoids the gallery like the plague. In his mind he walks right up to the back door. He’s haunted by the ghosts of a thousand times he walked these same streets with Phil, texting Phil, on the phone to Phil, hand in hand with him, the sweet smell of his aftershave in the air and his low, beautiful voice in his ear.

  
_nothing is fun when you're heartbroken,_ he writes on his blog.

  
Theo sends him a message and he ends up explaining about the breakup in simultaneously the vaguest and yet also the most detailed terms - it's the weird dichotomy of internet friends, where all at once you're saying more than you've ever said to anyone before while the pair of you are wearing identity-concealing masks. Kind of like how his friendship with Nix used to be, he thinks, before the two of them stopped bothering.

  
A few of his other mutuals message him, some leave supportive replies on the post. He appreciates them, he really does.

  
It turns out tryingforamazing’s had similar bad luck with his guy lately, too.

  
_It’s heartbreak season_ , he sends, with a link to Dan's post.

  
_oof tell me about it_ , Dan replies, with a nonchalance he doesn’t feel. _did it not work out? stupid question sorry_

  
tryingforamazing sends a sad emoji back.

  
_Idk_ , he says, after a moment. _We had an argument. Don’t know what to do. I miss him_

  
Dan swallows, hard.

  
_Relatable mood_ , he replies.

  
_what about u?_

  
After a deep breath, Dan responds.

  
_I really fucked up. Kept secrets from him. he hasn’t called, honestly don’t blame him_

  
He shuts the app then, locking his phone and holding it tight, hardly able to bear looking at his own stupidity laid out in black and white.

  
At least he's not alone in his heartbreak. That’s comforting, if only slightly.

-

  
He can't keep it hidden for long. He knows that. Dan isn't quiet when he's in love, and he'd mentioned Phil in idle conversation more than he'd care to admit. There's a void in his life now, moments when Dan's fingers itch to text Phil something funny, moments when he's walking through the rain-washed December streets and he thinks of the times he walked home knowing he was going to Phil, or when Phil would call him, voice warm in his headphones like a caress, a golden glow lighting his way through the dark streets.

  
There's a gap in Dan's chest that feels like the size of a whole person, like there ought to be a draft running right through him, wintry wind and rain sluicing through the hole in his bones. He always knew that Phil's presence in his head and his heart was big, importance magnifying him tenfold. He knew that and yet now the space is empty it seems cavernous and unbearable.

  
It's not even losing Phil as a boyfriend, although that's awful in itself. Dan thinks he could've tolerated an amicable breakup where they remained friends, but that's not what he got. So he didn't only lose Phil, his boyfriend, he lost Phil, his best friend too.

  
He isn't sure which loss hurts more.

  
-

  
Everyone's noticeably nicer to him when the truth comes out. Christmas creeps closer and Jess slips her hand into his one cold afternoon. There are two hot chocolates steaming on the counter in front of them, the cafe full of the low buzz of chatter, people in coats and scarves using the space as a safe haven away from the cold and the wet.

  
"Jess," Dan says, feeling old and weary.

  
She just pushes closer to his side like a puppy.

  
"Stop," She says, quietly. "I made hot chocolate. Hot chocolate makes everything better."

  
That was one of Phil's favourite idioms, not that she knows it. Dan had always thought it was rich coming from the guy who was practically attached by the vein to a cup of coffee at all times, but it'd made him smile, the way most things Phil did always had.

  
"Does it?" He manages to say, eventually.

  
"Yep," Jess says, and squeezes his hand tight. "Hundred percent effectiveness guaranteed."

  
Peri edges out of the kitchen then, something anxious about her expression that makes Dan feel curiously warm. They're worried about him.

  
"Heard this, Per? Jess's hot chocolate fixes heartbreak."

  
"Yeah, it does," Peri says. "Scientifically proven."

  
Dan looks at the pair of them and realises that he loves them, he really does. They're weird and noisy and they each have their own idiosyncrasies but they're wonderful friends.

  
So he squeezes Jess's hand back before he lets go, flashes the pair of them a smile and dutifully picks up the mug of hot chocolate, cream sadly melting into it.

  
"Worth a try," He says, and takes a sip.

  
-

  
He forgets about the connection between this utter mess of a situation and the art shop right until he's walking through the door, already unwinding his scarf from his neck and breathing in the smell of the pencils. The bell dings, heralding his arrival, and the guy behind the counter turns. It’s only then that Dan remembers in crystal-clear detail him walking down the street with Phil, painfully, awfully familiar.

  
Dan's already turning to leave when the guy calls for him to wait, but Dan isn't about to wait. He's gonna find a new place to buy paint - there's somewhere on Oldham Street, he doesn't need to be here anyway -

  
"Wait, wait," The guy's following him out, of course he is, fumbling to lock the shop doors behind himself.

Dan just keeps walking, feeling awful and humiliated, but of course that isn't the end of it because the guy soon catches up, feet slipping on fallen leaves.

"Wait."

  
"I forgot, alright?" Dan snaps, because it's the truth, and God he's so _tired_. "I just - I forgot, I'll go somewhere else-"

  
"They don't sell raspberry pink at the other place," The guy says, and that's enough to make Dan stop, turn and look at him and his little glasses and his hair and the anguished look on his face. "I'm the only place that stocks it."

  
"There are other shades of pink," Dan says, dully.

  
"Right, yeah," He says. He pauses. "Come for coffee."

  
"Right," Dan says, sharply. "'Cause I broke your friend's heart and now we're gonna hang out, ok."

  
He pauses before _friend_ \- the most minute pause in history, tiny, infinitesimal. The guy leaps on it like a dog on fresh meat.

  
"He's a friend," He says. "A really good friend, ok, the best, and that's it - I - I have a girlfriend, alright, I'm - I'm straight as anything." He pauses, and Dan feels like running. "One coffee, come on. Just over there. I'll get it."

  
It's beyond Dan why, but he agrees, the pair of them crossing the road to the coffee shop on the corner. 

  
Dan's been here with Phil before a bunch of times, and that thought alone makes him feel terrible, stranded in a window seat while a total stranger buys them coffee.

  
"So. I'm PJ."

  
"The same PJ who owns the gallery?" Dan asks, skeptical. When PJ nods, he asks, "You're rich enough to own a gallery so you work in an art shop all day?"

  
"I own the art shop too," PJ says, bashfully. "And I love it. I like doing things. Keeping busy."

  
Dan swallows and watches the steam spiralling from his black coffee instead of PJ's concerned expression.

  
"Alright, ok," He says. "Well, it's nice to meet you. Thanks for the paint-"

  
"You should talk to him."

  
"Ok," Dan says, resolving not to follow that advice for a moment. "If that's everything, then-"

  
"He misses you," PJ says. "I know he does."

  
Dan swallows around the lump in his throat and shakes his head.

  
"I don't expect him to," He says. After a moment's pause, he adds, "Sometimes people saying what you want to hear isn't actually what you want to hear."

  
"I'm not just saying what you want to hear," PJ protests. "What - what would I have to gain from that? He's a mess, he - I've never seen him as happy as when he was with you. Even just as friends, you guys..." He falters, swallows. Dan absolutely isn't going to cry. He takes a scalding gulp of coffee just to distract himself. "You guys -"

  
"I fucked it up," Dan says, flatly. "I didn't trust him, I - I projected my issues onto him and I blamed him for shit that wasn't his fault and -"

  
"And he's miserable without you.”

  
"Oh, ok," Dan says. "Well. I'm miserable without him too, so."

  
He tries to sound flippant but his voice cracks like an old plate. He has to take another boiling hot drink of coffee and stare out of the window at the wintry street to distract himself from the burning in the back of his throat that has nothing to do with the heat of the coffee.

  
"Dan-"

  
"How did you know it was me?" Dan asks flatly, sniffing and regaining his composure. "Like - I knew you were art shop guy, how long did you -" _How long have you known I was Dan? That Dan, Phil's Dan?_

  
"He has you as his wallpaper," PJ says, with a shrug, open and honest. "And I follow him on Instagram. You're on his Instagram a lot, you know." He pauses. "I never told him about - about the paint, or anything."

  
"It wouldn't matter if you had," Dan says, feeling unaccountably cold all of a sudden.

  
"No," PJ says, thoughtfully. "But I knew you weren't painting, like, canvases or anything. And he didn't say, like, _oh, my boyfriend's a street artist_. So I just guessed he didn't know."

  
Dan swallows.

  
"How did you know?" He asks. There's no point at all in denying it.

  
PJ shrugs.

  
"I saw some stuff around," He says. "Like I said, I'm the only person that stocks raspberry pink. I'd know it anywhere."

  
Dan's face is warm. He picks up the coffee and downs it in one, too hot sliding down his throat, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

  
"I should go," He says. "Thanks for the coffee."

  
"It's not over, that's all I'm saying," PJ says, his final shot as Dan zips up his coat and hikes his bag onto his shoulder. "Not if you don't want it to be."

  
-

  
That night when he finally gets home, he leaves his clothes in a puddle at the front door and just walks straight to the bathroom like a man possessed. He flicks the shower on so he can stand under the hot spray for forty minutes and let the rush of the water calm and soothe him. He crouches down so that the water can rush over his ears in this certain way and closes his eyes and feels like he's in a waterfall, like he's drifting underwater.

  
If it wasn't over, Phil would call. And he hasn't. Even the fact that he said he would was a throwaway comment, a weak platitude, something to throw out to get Dan off his back. Not that Dan has such a low opinion of Phil - not at all, but he knows he fucked things up really badly this time. If he was Phil, he probably wouldn't call either.

  
_He's miserable without you_. But Dan hasn't seen any evidence of that. He hasn't seen Phil, full stop. Somehow this city is so small when you don't want it to be, so tiny that you trip over people in the street who you embarrassed yourself in front of at a party once years ago and never wanted to see again, and yet it's simultaneously so big that you have no chance of running into someone when you truly, desperately want to.

  
_I'm miserable without him too._ God, the way his voice had cracked. He cringes under the spray, squeezes his eyes shut tight and moves back. His feet squeak against the tiles as he splutters and shakes his wet hair off his forehead where it's streaming into his eyes.

  
When he finally emerges, pink and clean, hair lank and dripping down the back of his neck, he's nothing more than a blur in the fogged up mirror, hands clutching at the cold porcelain of the sink as he tries to see his face through the fog.

  
He experiences a flashback, crystal clear and painful, a memory of being stood here like this and Phil knocking on the door, Dan idly saying he could come in if he wanted and Phil absently kissing him on his wet shoulder as he passed, on the hunt for deodorant. They'd had dinner reservations or something. At the time the ease of the moment had made Dan feel so much, heart unbelievably full of fondness.

  
Now the same fondness rises up in his throat like bile, threatening to choke him.

  
-

  
Christmas creeps up on him. It's been coming for a while, lingering in the air since the paper jack o'lanterns disappeared from the trees. Even so, he feels like the rest of December passes too quickly, the days rushing by in a dream - work and home and work and painting with Nix and tram journeys in the dark, head resting against the cold window while the world slides by outside. 

  
He falls on broken glass down by the river after he and Nix decide to deface a bridge near the arena and have to make a quick getaway. With nowhere to go and nobody to help him, he ends up sitting in Piccadilly Gardens, levering the little pieces of glass out with his overgrown fingernails, squeamishness making his stomach roll.

  
He's sat on one of the raised stone benches that surrounds the fountains. They’re lit up in the dark, flashing from pink to blue to purple. Dan knows he has to get home as soon as possible, wipe his knee down with an alcohol wipe. It's not _that_ bad, he knows - the glass only got stuck because he landed funny. The bleeding has dampened to a slow ooze, which he doesn't think would've happened if he was actually gonna die of blood loss, or anything.

  
The cold bites at his neck and his hands - he'd taken his gloves off to deal with the glass and he puts them back on with trembling fingers, pulling his coat tight around himself and watching the lights for a moment.

  
It's not even gone eleven yet, which means there's still a tram he can get home. Nix hadn't wanted to leave him if he was hurt, but he'd played it off to them, embarrassed. Now he feels nauseous and lonely, his knee stinging in the icy air.

  
The fountains bubble and hiss, lights flickering from pink to green. Dan looks across at the hulking silhouette of the statue of Queen Victoria. He can hear laughter across the square, carefree and bright. People are probably out on their work Christmas parties.

  
He and Jess and Peri had decided against a night out this year. They'd had a little meal in the cafe after closing, all cooking and laughing together. Peri had put on a playlist - soothing jazzy versions of Christmas classics that you usually heard in Starbucks this time of year.

  
Dan doesn't have anymore Christmas plans. He and Phil hadn't really discussed it before everything went horribly wrong. He knows he's headed home - his mum had called a few weeks back when he'd been on his way to work and he'd absent mindedly _hmm'd_ and _yes'd_ his way through a talk about how much his grandma was missing him and was he gonna be vegan over Christmas because she'd seen a nut roast in Sainsbury's that she thought he'd like if he was...

  
So Dan's headed south for Christmas. Like a bird, he thinks, and that's a satisfying thought somehow. Flying south for the winter, leaving the cold and the dark behind, diving into a world of Christmas lights and good smells. Even if Dan's never felt less in the mood, he won't ruin Christmas for everyone else.

  
He buys last minute gifts. The cuts on his hand don't heal properly, they turn this dark pinkish colour and the scab looks funny - he keeps catching it when he pulls disposable gloves on at work or when he shoves his hand into his jeans pocket, forgetting for a moment. He ends up going to the drop-in centre in Boots and getting prescribed a cream and some tablets, the doctor giving him some stern advice about being more careful next time.

  
Before he knows it, he's catching the train home from Piccadilly, wrapped up against the cold. The wintry sunshine lights up the platforms, and Dan's headphones cushion him against the echoing calls of his fellow commuters, other people headed home for the season too.

  
Part of him expects Phil to call over the holidays. Even though he knows he won't - even though he's pretty certain Phil won't call at all, despite what PJ had said. Dan's heart still hopes, a little flower blooming in the coldest frost Dan's ever weathered, certain to die before the thaw.

  
But there's nothing. And all Dan ends up doing for the week he's at home is getting his phone out in quiet moments and scrolling down to Phil's contact on his phone, feeling empty and sad.

  
Christmas, he thinks. Phil loves Christmas. He wears ugly jumpers and antlers and laughs louder than anyone at stupid jokes, so he probably loves crackers like nobody else.

  
Phil loves Christmas, and Christmas is important to him - and he doesn't call Dan.

  
And Dan won't call. He can't. The thought of it makes his pulse beat wildly in his neck like the frantic wings of a trapped bird. The look on Phil's face during that last argument, the way he'd shrugged Dan's touch away like the mere thought disgusted him – it’s all too fresh in his mind. 

  
Dan had really held everything in his hands and clenched his fists and ground it all into dust between his fingers.

  
"Something's wrong," Dan's grandma says on Christmas day. They're sitting by the tree and the TV's on mute, some Pixar movie playing away to itself with no sound and the Christmas tree lights cycling through the colours.

  
"Sorry?" Dan says. In the kitchen, he can hear his mum saying something about the gravy, the bang of a spoon against a pan.

  
His grandma sucks her gums thoughtfully.

  
"Got a boyfriend? Your mum mentioned something."

  
Dan shakes his head, throat thick. It's still totally wild to him on some level, being out to his grandma - the one person more than anybody else he thought would be severely disappointed. But she wasn't. He underestimated her.

  
His grandma holds his hand then, leaning forwards. Her skin's soft against his palm.

  
"Men are bastards," She says, deadpan, and Dan's so shocked that he laughs and nearly spills his coffee on his lap, has to put it on the table next to them while she sits back in her chair, grinning approvingly.

  
"Gran."

  
"I'm not wrong," She says.

  
"You're not," Dan says, automatically. "But - but in this case I'm the bastard."

  
She looks at him.

  
"Are you breaking hearts?"

  
"Not intentionally," He says. "I just - I thought he was cheating on me and I confronted him about it. And, uh. He was really offended and - and said I didn't trust him. And that's it, we - we haven't spoken since."

  
"When was that?"

  
"Couple of weeks ago," Dan says. He shrugs when she looks at him, expression inscrutable.

  
"Well," She says. "Sounds like the pair of you need to talk."

  
"I don't-"

  
"Daniel," She says. "Nobody ever fixed anything by not talking. You should call him."

  
"I can't," Dan says. When she looks disapproving, opens her mouth to say something else, he hurries on. "Not on Christmas day, grandma. What if it made everything worse and, like, ruined his Christmas?"

  
"D'you think he's having a good Christmas?" The _without you_ goes unsaid, but Dan gets the gist.

  
"Probably," He says, flippantly. Then he thinks, really thinks about the kind of person Phil is, and what PJ had said - he's miserable without you. "No. No, probably not."

  
"Hmm," His gran says, approvingly. "Well, if you won't call you'll just have to go and see him in person."

  
"I-"

  
"And talk things out," She says. A pause. "He's important, isn't he?"

  
Dan's throat feels thick. 

  
"Yeah," He says. He finds her hand on the arm of the chair this time, squeezes it as gently as he can.

  
His mum coughs behind them. She's standing at the living room door, and he can tell by the look on her face that she's been there a while.

  
"D'you want a cup of tea, mum? Dan?"

  
"I'm ok, thanks," Dan mutters.

  
"Go on then, sweetheart," His grandma says. She winks at Dan for some ungodly reason, like mum can't see her from the door. He laughs, feeling lighter somehow than he has in days.

  
He can fix this, he thinks. It had seemed so impossible even yesterday, but - he can do it. He knows he can do it.

  
-

  
He's been talking to tryingforamazing for a few days, on and off.

  
_do you really take the photos you post_ , they ask one night at 3am, while he's still at his mum’s house.

  
_yeah_ , he replies. Then, _what time zone are you in? it's late here_

  
_GMT_ , they say. _can't sleep_ , and then a little heartbroken emoji.

  
_oh big mood,_ Dan replies. _call him. talk it out_.

  
_no_ , they reply, instantly. _he doesn't want to talk to me. don't want to bother him at xmas anyway_

  
_he misses you_ , Dan says. _that's what i'm telling myself about my guy anyway to like stave off the madness_

  
_i don't know,_ they say. 

  
Dan ends up tapping off the app to watch a relaxing video of magnets on YouTube, feels his limbs getting heavy and his eyelids drooping at last. He's about to lock his phone and actually go to sleep when something makes him check the Tumblr app again.

  
_my friend tried to speak to him_ , they say. _like told him i was sad without him idk. i was mad when he told me (my friend i mean) but then he didn't call so like i guess he doesn't care_

  
Then, _i think i really fucked up. he had a shitty ex so he finds it hard to trust ppl and i took it so personally and got so mad and he probably hates me now and i rly don't blame him_

  
_like who blames someone for how other ppl treated them he can't help how things went with his ex_

  
Dan's heart is pounding in his chest and he's suddenly wide awake.

  
_you shouldn't blame yourself,_ he types, palms sweating. _if people have issues bc of past relationships then they should suck it up and deal w it. not everyone is like ur bad ex u know????_

  
The chat window stays like that for a long time, Dan staring at his message dragging himself to hell.

  
_it's not like that_ , the next message says, Dan's phone chirping. _idk i just wish he'd talked to me about how he was feeling instead of jumping to the worst conclusions??? it's hard. i don't blame him i just feel like i was the asshole because i took it super personally instead of being like hey this is an issue you're having, let's sort this out._

  
_But of course you'd take it personally,_ Dan types back, sitting up in bed so he can write faster. _you care about him and he can't trust you. that shit hurts_

  
_it does_ , tryingforamazing replies, with a sad face emoji. _idk i feel like being without him hurts more. it's like i didn't even just lose a bf i lost a friend_

  
_You didn't lose him. call him._

  
_i can't_

  
Dan swallows, feeling like there's something scrabbling at the inside of his throat, clawing to get out.

  
_what's he called?_ He asks at last, feeling like he might throw up. _your guy?_

  
The chat is silent for an endless, heart stopping moment. An eternity.

  
_dan_ , Phil says.

  
Because of course it's Phil, Dan thinks, as he locks his phone and lets it fall onto the bed with a soft flump, running his hands through his hair and staring down at his covered knees. Of course tryingforamazing is Phil's blog, with its generic dog pictures and bad memes and occasional graffiti art posts. Of course it's Phil who'd find a random street art blog on Tumblr and send it messages of appreciation for their mediocre offerings to the world.

  
Of course it's Phil out there somewhere the day after Christmas, blaming himself for Dan's own stupidity. Dan grips his hair tight and makes a stupid groaning noise, like his own guilt and regret simply can't be kept in in silence.

  
He should message him then. He knows he should. He should snatch up his phone and tell Phil he's so sorry, that he's an insecure idiot who made a mistake, that it's nowhere near Phil's fault for being hurt that Dan didn't trust him, that he misses him more than he can even explain, a feeling so thick and potent he could almost choke on it.

  
But he doesn't. He picks up his phone, sure, unlocks it, flinches when he sees that last Tumblr message, his own name floating in the chat window like an accusation. Then he opens his browser and looks at train tickets.

  
He intended to stay until the New Year - Peri's pretty lax with holidays at the cafe, and her and her sickeningly cute partner are spending the holidays in Norway in the snow. As for Jess, term doesn't start for students until the 20th January. There's really no hurry for Dan to go back up north, none at all.

  
But he has an idea, half formed and stupid, a way of making it up to Phil, of explaining everything and apologizing in one fell swoop, one dramatic gesture.

  
So he buys a train ticket.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay on this update! Life got a bit hectic but everything is good and I'm back 💖 
> 
> thank you so so much to anyone who's read and liked this, it means the world to me. Honestly, I know I fall behind on replying to comments so it might seem like I don't see them or care but they mean so much to me. Last year I considered just deleting this account when I was going through a Rough Time™️ and seeing that people enjoy my writing really just makes me more and more glad that I didn't go through with it. Thank you all so much 💖💖💖
> 
> as ever, Andrea you are the greatest beta the world has ever seen and without you I would be a low-rent john green 🥰💖💕

"You're mad," Nix says, flatly.

  
He hadn't expected them to meet him. They'd swapped numbers a while ago, both agreeing to only use them in emergencies ("Or if you get robbed again, you total arsehole," Nix had said, giving him a light and friendly punch on the arm). 

  
Dan thinks maybe getting Phil back counts as an emergency.

  
It's mid afternoon on the 27th of December, and it's beyond Dan that he's back in the icy north so soon. There are white flowers of frost blooming over everything, bare trees and bus stops and unsalted pavements. Everything is glittering like a Christmas tree, like a winter wonderland. 

  
Dan is cold and sneezing, which isn't the best for stealth, but he's wrapped up warm. He and Nix are huddled up in the deserted McDonald's near Oxford Road, hunched over cups of coffee.

  
"It's a grand gesture."

  
"Mad," Nix repeats. "I thought you were down South ‘til January, anyway."

  
"I was," Dan says. "I just - it can't wait that long."

  
Nix doesn't say anything to that - just drinks their coffee in silence for a moment.

  
"What if he doesn't see the post? What if he's - I dunno - taking a social media break for Christmas, or something."

  
Dan's thought about that. On the train home earlier that day, after exactly zero sleep, he'd considered that as a possibility.

  
"He will," He says, with a confidence he's so so far from feeling. "He has to."

  
-

  
The plan is stupid and extra and gay, but since Dan himself is stupid and extra and gay it seems particularly appropriate.

  
He's gonna paint inside the factory. A painting just for Phil, just as dumb and mindless and mediocre as everything else he's ever painted, using the last of the raspberry pink. Then he's gonna take a photo and post it to his blog with caption that only Phil would understand, asking him to meet him at nine outside the factory.

  
"Midnight would've been better," Dan says to Nix, who rolls their eyes.

  
"Right, yeah," They say. "'Cause every regular person wants to be out and about at midnight. Right after Christmas. You really are mad."

  
"Like, probably," Dan says. That morning on the train he'd taken his medication with a gulp of strong, lukewarm coffee - it wasn't lost on him how dumb that was, how ill-advised. And now he's back home and preparing a stupid grand gesture that might all amount to nothing. That probably will amount to nothing, in fact.

  
He's gonna do it anyway, though. He has to fix this. It was stupid of him to ever keep things from Phil, to ever make him feel like Dan didn't trust him. Because Phil was right - not everyone is like his ex. He needs to get over it - so he loved someone a long time ago and they broke his heart, so what? He isn't even fully convinced that it was real love - it was more Dan clinging to someone in the depths of his depression. The whole relationship was just flotsam in the flood of Dan's apathy, bobbing in the waves, something for him to hold on to, desperately. 

  
No wonder his ex left and found someone else. Dan truly doesn't blame him. He wishes it'd ended more amicably, sure, but it was doomed to end badly from the start. It was like building a house on quicksand and then being surprised when it got sucked into the ground, bricks crumbling, glass panes shattering under the force of it all.

  
Dan's in a better place now. He's not drowning anymore, and every day brings something new to be happy about, even in these awful dreary days without Phil. The sunrise is still pink like a new flower in the sky, dogs still wag their tails as they pass him on walks with their owners, the smell of coffee from cafes in the cold streets still drifts over to him and makes him deeply, infinitely grateful to be alive in this world, this messy, huge, stupid world, where dogs can be happy and babies can laugh and people can drink coffee and read books and play Pokémon.

  
And love. They can love. Dan loves Phil, loves him so much that he might choke on it, that every moment not speaking to him feels wrong. Even the smallest, dullest moments feel like they ought to be shared with Phil, always. He needs Phil by his side to tug on his hand and point out the happy dogs in the street, he needs him to tease him about soy milk when he's buying coffee, he needs the pair of them to sit at opposite ends of his squashed old sofa and be able to look up from his phone and see Phil, utterly lost in whatever he's doing, reading an email or scrolling through Tumblr or evolving a Pokémon, face relaxed and unknowing, light glinting off his glasses and the warmth of him right there, the pair of them in their little bubble, safe from the rest of the world.

  
Dan needs that. He's ready for it. He's ready to be honest, to share every part of himself - even the ugly parts. 

  
And if one day Phil decides to give him his heart back, then, well. That's fine. It'll hurt and it'll be difficult but he'll get through it. He knows he can get through it.

  
-

  
He paints _I love you_ on the wall in raspberry pink, over layers of other graffiti - over people's names and stupid dick drawings and other nonsense. Then he snaps a photo, hands shaking, and posts it to Tumblr.

  
_we watched the sunrise here once_ , he writes. _come and find me, 9pm. I'll be there. I'm sorry._

  
"Have you ever thought of just talking to him," Nix says, when Dan ducks out of the factory, going up to them where they'd been watching the door for him. "I heard that works." 

  
But they touch his shoulder, patting it awkwardly, and smile at him. When Dan smiles back it feels weird - maybe he's just overtired at this point, he feels like ten minutes ago he was in his parents' house surrounded by tinsel and now he's here, frost covered Manchester with paint cans clanking in his rucksack, and he just told Phil he loves him. He loves Phil. 

  
Now he has to wait.

  
-

  
He ends up holing up in the coffee shop where he ended up with PJ, just because it's off the beaten track and open until late. He knows he can stay there indefinitely if he drinks his coffee slowly and doesn't make eye contact with the baristas. 

  
When he walks in, the rush of warm air making him shudder, his eyes are drawn to where he and PJ had sat last time. The ghost of that last encounter lurks in his peripheral vision like a crime scene, like there ought to be an outline of a person marked out in tape and chalk on the sofa where he'd sat and his voice had broken.

  
He orders tea, not trusting himself with caffeine when he's already so anxious. He hides himself away on the little mezzanine floor, back supported by squashy little pillows, and tries to lose himself in Relaxing Piano Playlist #4567 and his book - because he's new Dan, turning over a new leaf Dan, and new Dan tries to get through the veritable library of unread books he's been hoarding at home.

  
He tries to focus for a while, but the words seem to swim and swirl on the page before him. He ends up folding the page over and rests the book down, settles to bite his thumbnail anxiously and go over best and worst case scenarios in his head.

  
Best case scenario - Phil sees the post, goes to meet Dan and Dan pours his heart out. He says he's sorry and tells him everything. Like, literally, wrenches the two halves of his ribcage open like, _here it all is, all the ugly squishy stuff, please just love me anyway because I love you so much._

  
Worst case scenario. There are lots of those. Phil doesn't see the post. Phil sees the post and doesn't care and doesn't show up. Phil sees the post and shows up just to tell Dan that he doesn't love him, that the relationship was only ever casual to him and he wasn't that invested.

  
Phil shows up and Dan tries to explain and Phil just tells him that he's too hurt, that the anxiety Dan caused him totally fucked up his Christmas and he'll never get that back, and he can't forgive him. He can't ever forgive him.

  
Anxiety is a motherfucker, basically. The worst thing about being anxious for Dan has always been the knowledge that even though the thing you're worrying about isn't particularly likely, you can and will still be deeply worried about it. Dan is almost certain, with the application of logic, that because Phil isn't a terrible person, he isn't likely to yell at Dan, to call him names, to look at him like something he just scraped off the bottom of his shoe. He _knows_ that, and yet his mind still cycles through hundreds of scenarios where that exact thing happens.

  
So Dan bites his thumbnail and listens to his calming playlists, even though there's a storm raging inside his head. He opens his book a couple of times, manages a few sentences, even a page before he puts it down again. He scrolls through Twitter, Instagram, avoids Tumblr like the plague.

  
His phone doesn't ring. That worries him more. Would Phil call if he'd seen the post? He doesn't know. The evening draws on - beyond this bubble, lamplit and beautiful, the streets are dark and rain-washed. There's some kind of book club happening on the floor below and Dan watches a woman with a paperback clutched to her chest, watches her mouth moving even though he can't hear what she's saying, the light glinting off her necklace.

  
He thinks about calling Nix. He thinks about walking down the street to the art shop and telling PJ about the whole thing, demanding to know if he thinks he's made a mistake. He thinks about calling Phil like a normal person would, telling him everything.

  
It takes him an age to notice the text.

  
It's just a heart emoji, the sparkly one, Phil's favourite. That's all he's sent. Dan had deleted their old texts so he didn't have to look at them - he'd started obsessively scrolling through them, making himself feel worse and worse and worse. So it's the first message, the only message from him, like a new beginning.

  
There's a lump in Dan's throat and his eyes sting. He squeezes them shut and stares hard at the book group and their little circle of chairs, willing himself not to cry. He looks at his phone about a thousand more times to make sure he really isn't mistaken, then locks it and places it face down on the table next to his empty teacup.

  
Heart emoji. He saw the post. He'll be there. He knows who Dan is and doesn't hate him. 

  
Maybe everything really will be alright. 

  
-

  
He doesn't mean to fall asleep. Genuinely, he doesn't. But it's like once he gets that text - once that tentative relief floods through him, warm and comforting as hot bathwater - he feels completely wiped out. The lack of sleep and the decaf tea and the comfort of the bench seat catch up with him, his eyelids drooping as he sits there on his 400th attempt to make it to the next chapter in his book, words blurring, lulled by his relaxing playlist and the buzz of conversation he can still hear from the cafe around him.

  
When he wakes up, it's dark outside. It was dark anyway but it _feels_ darker somehow. He's disorientated, and his neck hurts from sleeping in a weird position. He yawns and blinks and wipes drool off his lips (seriously, just kill him) and turns his phone over where it was resting on the table (seriously, anyone could've run off with it, he's such an idiot).

  
When he sees the time, his heart drops. Half ten. Half fucking _ten_ \- he leaps to his feet so quickly he knocks the chair over, has to waste precious seconds righting it again, throwing his backpack onto his back and rushing down the stairs. The coffee shop is full of evening patrons talking in low voices, people on dates, candles flickering on the bookshelves. Dan rushes past them all, feeling like he might be sick.

  
He has missed calls. Of course he does. He taps at his phone as he rushes down the street, breathless and panicked. It's so cold outside that it feels like he's plunged into icy water. His chest is tight, breath wisping away from his lips in weak clouds. The pavement hasn't been gritted properly and he slips a few times, only just managing not to fall. He flinches at the sound of drunken laughter as he passes bars on his way to Piccadilly Gardens. 

  
The fountains are lit, and Dan experiences this intense flash of memory, picking glass out of his fingers and throwing the pieces and hearing them fall with a gentle tinkle amongst the glowing lights.

  
He has missed calls off Nix and - and Phil. His heart leaps in his chest and he rounds the corner, scrolling through his texts.

  
_are you at the factory?_

  
_dan did he meet you are you there_

  
_dan i'm here can u reply when u get this did u go to the factory?????_

  
_answer my calls_

  
That's Nix, the last text from about five minutes ago. Phil only sent two texts.

  
_on my way_

  
_I'm here_ , and that heart emoji again. 

  
Dan calls Phil but it goes straight to voicemail. Swearing, he runs across the road (a black cab horn wails, he really did nearly get run over there) and calls Nix.

  
"Oh my fucking God, answer your fucking phone," Nix says when they pick up, which is the most Dan thinks he's ever heard them swear in one go the whole time he's known them.

  
"I know, I know," He pants. "I fell asleep, can you believe it?"

  
"Dan," Nix says, ignoring him completely. "Is he here, did he come and meet you?"

  
There's something about the urgency in their voice that makes Dan feel cold in a way that has nothing to do with the weather.

  
"I don't know, I - he said he was there but - I fell asleep, I told you -"

  
"Listen," Nix says, firmly. "Hang up right now and call him. You need to call him, ok? Now, Dan."

  
It takes Dan a second to act, fingers suddenly feeling nerveless and dead, useless stumps attached to his hands. He hangs up and takes off down Canal Street at a run, dodging groups of cheerful people on nights out, dimly aware of the way the lights glint on the water, rainbow flags in his peripheral vision. He cuts down by the canal itself and runs down the deserted path.

Phil doesn't pick up. His phone goes straight to voicemail, again and again, the cool recorded voice telling him to leave his message after the tone.

  
His feet pound against the canal path, ducking quickly under that low bridge when he reaches it, heart fluttering wildly in his chest when he thinks of the guy with the not-knife who had robbed him there.

  
When he gets out by Whitworth Street he can smell smoke. He can see smoke, clouds of it belching out into the black night's sky. He runs across the road and under the arches and it's only when he rounds the final corner that he realises what's actually happening.

  
The factory is on fire. The flames are blazing in the upper windows, the smell sulphurous and disgusting, like a bonfire, like there ought to be fireworks and hot dogs. Dan runs, somehow, running even though he's breathless and has a stitch in his side, even though there are people clustered on the pavement, even though he can hear the distant wail of a siren in the air, he's running.

  
Dan's so caught up in his own blind panic that he doesn't notice someone calling his name until he's wrenching the side door of the burning building open, acrid smell of smoke stinging his nose and making him cough.

  
"Dan," Someone says, grabbing his shoulder hard and pulling. It's only when he stumbles and turns, wheezing from running and smoke, that he realises Phil's right there, hair wet with rain, eyes wild. "Dan, what the fuck are you doing?"

  
"Phil," Dan says, air catching in his throat like he's choking on it. It feels like a million years since they last saw each other - like Dan's lived a lifetime until this point, this moment in a rainy alleyway, drinking in the wrinkles by Phil's eyes and his rain-spotted glasses and his beautiful mouth. He touches Phil's shoulder to reassure himself that he isn't still asleep.

  
"What the hell," Phil says, breath coming in gasps. "What are you doing, Dan, what-"

  
"Excuse me," Someone in a hi-vis says, large gloved hand on Dan's shoulder nearly making him jump out of his skin. "There's a cordon further down the street, it's not safe to be this close."

  
They get herded along, Dan gripping onto Phil's wrist and the sleeve of his coat, heart thudding painfully hard, feeling like he's about to throw up. They duck under the cordon, tape fluttering in the breeze, and walk past the few people huddled there in a daze. 

  
The whine of sirens gets closer and closer. Phil pulls him to one side and finally speaks properly.

  
"That place is on fire," He says, and his hands are shaking when he gestures. "What the hell were you doing just running into a burning building, Dan, what the fuck-"

  
"I thought you were in there," Dan says. "I said - I said meet me there and - and you'd texted saying you were there and -"

  
"And I didn't go in," Phil says, and he's touching Dan's arms now, his neck, his hands cold and wet. "There was some guy outside I - I freaked out, and then you didn't show up, and-"

  
"I fell asleep," Dan says. "I'm sorry, I fell asleep, I'm sorry-"

  
"It's ok," Phil says, pulling Dan close. Dan holds on tight, hands slipping on the wet material of his coat. "It's ok, it's ok."

  
"I'm sorry," Dan says, his voice muffled in Phil's shoulder.

  
"It's ok," Phil says, not letting him go. "You should sleep more."

  
"You should sleep more," Dan says, hiccupping out a laugh as he pulls back a little, just so he can look Phil in the eye. "I mean - I'm so sorry for everything, for - the stuff with PJ, and doubting you, I - I should've just told you I was worried, I was just so worried about - about losing you and I - I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry."

  
"It's ok," Phil says. His hands are touching Dan's face and Dan feels dizzy with it, just how Phil's hands feel after so long. "Hey, it's ok."

  
Dan shakes his head in Phil's hands.

  
"No, no-"

  
"Dan-"

  
"I was a total arsehole, you can't just forgive me like that."

  
"It's not just like that," Phil protests. Their cold noses touch - when Phil kisses him, all Dan tastes is rain. He pulls back too fast and Dan takes a second too long to open his eyes, feeling swept away by it all. "I've had a while to think about it. Like - the second I left I wanted to come back-"

  
"But you didn't call," Dan says, too tired to care about how desperate he sounds.

  
"I was scared to," Phil says. "I'm sorry."

  
"Stop, I'm sorry. I should've trusted you. I just - I got so caught up in my head and I - I'm gonna sneeze."

  
"You're - what?" Phil says, already laughing in disbelief.

  
Dan just waves a hand at him until he actually sneezes. They laugh together for a moment, companionable and utterly ridiculous. Dan feels lighter than he has in weeks, lighter than air. It takes him a second to realise his phone's ringing, buzzing away in his pocket.

  
"You can't just give me your number for emergencies and then not pick up," Nix says, the second he answers, Phil frowning curiously at him. 

  
"I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm the worst," He says, grinning at Phil, who leans in to kiss him on the cheek and just kind of stays there, his nose cold against the side of Dan's face.

  
"I take it he's alright?" Nix says, dryly.

  
"He's alright," Dan says, and laughs a little at the absurdity, the utter madness of it all. "Thank you. You're the best, you know that?"

  
"Yeah, yeah," Nix says, back to their usual deadpan delivery. "You go and be in love."

  
He hangs up, slipping his phone into his pocket.

  
"Who was that?" Phil asks, curiously.

  
"Long story."

  
"I've got time."

  
He slips his hand into Dan's as he speaks, their cold fingers touching.

  
"Ok," Dan says, and smiles, face aching with it.

  
-

  
On the walk to the gallery, Dan tells him everything. He tells him about Nix, how they'd met - them sneaking up on him by the train tracks and making him jump out of his skin, offering to paint with him - to show him how it was done. He tells him about the art shop, and the raspberry pink paint. He tells him about how quiet the city gets at four in the morning, when birds stray across the deserted roads and foxes emerge from the undergrowth, nosing hopefully at abandoned takeaway boxes. He tells him about the awful, ugly Halloween mask that he hardly wears any more, the grotesque witch face with its horrible straggly plastic hair.

  
It feels so good to confess, to let it all out, long-imprisoned words released into the rain-washed streets. Phil looks at him, his face lit up with amazement and wonder, asking questions, gasping, clearly enthralled. God, Dan loves him.

  
"You should've told me," He says, just as they're shuffling down the bin-lined alleyway that leads to the gallery door.

  
"I know," Dan says, regretful, watching Phil struggle with the key in the lock and feeling a calmness stealing across him, washing straight down to his bones. "It's not that I didn't trust you to know, I just -" 

  
And there's that moment, the point where he'd normally censor himself, stop talking and say something vague. Phil glances back at him, face blue-tinted in the moonlight, and he swallows. 

  
"I felt like if I told you everything, I - I was putting it all in danger," Dan says. "I - I know it's stupid, I just..." 

  
Phil turns and gets the door open and that gives Dan a second to gather his thoughts, as the pair of them shuffle into the draughty hallway.

  
"It's not stupid," Phil says, when he's shut the door behind them. He turns to face Dan, face indistinct in the poor light, his cold fingers finding Dan's.

  
"It is," Dan protests. "It's not that I didn't trust you, it was never that. It’s just – it’s just _me_.”

  
“ _It’s not you, it’s me_?” Phil says, wryly. “That came around quickly, you loved me like five seconds ago-"

  
“Shut up,” Dan says, laughing.

  
Phil grins. He reaches up and smooths Dan's damp hair down with his other hand and Dan's eyelids flutter, shuddering. 

  
“I feel bad that you felt like you couldn’t tell me how you were feeling,” He says, smile fading. “We really need to communicate better. Like, you can tell me if you're feeling, like - insecure or anxious and we can work it out between us."

  
"That can't just be it. You can't just forgive me like that."

  
"Yeah I can," Phil says, back of his knuckles brushing Dan's ear, then his jaw. "I love you, don't I? Love makes you stupid."

  
Dan laughs, breath hitching helplessly just from hearing Phil say it out loud, like it's nothing, like it's not the most wonderful thing Dan's ever heard.

  
"That's what Nix says," He says, laughing a little.

  
"Smart kid," Phil says, thumb soft at the corner of Dan's mouth. Dan's nerves are singing - he feels like a freshly-plucked harp string, taut and ringing. Phil moves in close, their noses brushing. "Can I...?"

  
"Please," Dan says, the word catching in his throat, not caring about how he sounds.

  
It's an awkward, stumbling journey up the stairs to the flat, the pair of them entirely caught up in each other, speaking in soft, loving whispers.

  
Later, they're dozing, their clothes abandoned in a damp pile by the door.

  
"Missed you so much," He says. He's gently pinching locks of Phil's hair, feeling the softness between his fingers, Phil's head resting on his bare chest.

  
"God, don't," Phil says. "It's been shit. I thought Martyn was gonna kill me, honestly."

  
"I'm sorry."

  
Phil moves then, rolls over awkwardly so his chin's digging into Dan's chest for a second.

  
"It's ok," He says. When Dan opens his mouth to protest, Phil interrupts before he can even start. "It's over and done with, alright? I love you and - and you love me, and - and I think it's mad that you just run around at night injuring yourself and - and painting. You're mad. And great. Like, really really great. Everything was rubbish without you, honestly."

  
"I love you," Dan says, a little helplessly, just because he feels like he should say it out loud.

  
"We did that bit," Phil says. "In _paint_ , Jesus, Dan. What if someone'd called the police?"

  
"They didn't."

  
"But they could've."

  
"Would've been worth it," Dan says, recklessly. "For you."

  
Phil snorts.

  
"Please don't ever feel like you have to risk arrest for me, alright?"

  
"I'd do anything for you," Dan says, entirely serious. They look at each other, blinking softly in the lamplight. Then Dan pretends to swoon, putting on a stupid high-pitched voice and clutching Phil's bare shoulder dramatically. "Oh, _Phil_!"

  
"Shut up," Phil says, laughing. "You're such a dick."

  
"You can't say that," Dan says, feeling giddy. "You love me."

  
"Yeah, yeah," Phil says, rolling his eyes, but then he shuffles forwards to kiss him. "You got me there," He murmurs, in the space between their lips.

  
Dan kisses him and feels like everything's right in the world again. Rain is pattering against the skylight window above them and they're cocooned in soft blankets and Phil loves him, just like that.

  
Life really is brilliant sometimes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to say one enormous thank you to everyone who kept up with this fic, who enjoyed it, left kudos, commented, however you liked it, thank you so so much. Before I sat down to write this in November I hadn't written in so long bc my mental health really knocked the wind out of me, and i never could've guessed that I'd be here having finished writing something this substantial, never mind having posted it. Honestly never. This fic has a special place in my heart, and so do all of you. Thank you 💖
> 
> Extra love goes to, of course, my legendary beta. Andrea (midnightradio on tumblr, go and follow 👀) I know you'll hit me with that "I didn't do anything" but this fic would never have got this far without you. Thanks for being a wonderful beta and an even more wonderful friend. You're the best 💖💖

Summer seems to come around fast that year.

  
Dan feels like he blinked, sometime in January, and somehow woke up and the frost was gone from the streets, the sky turned from steely grey to brilliant blue, and the bare limbs of trees were finally clothed with leaves again. Dan stubbornly suffers in black in the baking city streets, and Phil laughs at him, insisting on holding his hands even though they're both sweaty and awful. Dan wouldn't have it any other way.

  
"I can't believe you got soup," Phil says, one afternoon. They're sitting in Grosvenor Square, lounging on the grass in the sunshine. It rained yesterday so it's a nice sort of sunny, the kind where everything smells fresh and new and alive, even if the earth's a little damp underneath them.

  
"I like soup," Dan says, stubbornly, taking a sip off the plastic spoon. "I'm gonna tell Peri you said her soup was shit. She'll blacklist you."

  
Phil throws a napkin at him, laughing.

  
"Don't you dare," He says. "Her soup's great, I just - it's _June_ , Dan. And you got _soup_."

  
"Says you, Mr. Ham Sandwich," Dan says, laughing when Phil rolls his eyes.

  
"At least that's normal picnic food," He says, and takes a bite as if to prove a point.

  
Dan just shakes his head at him, fondly, and eats more of his soup. The pair of them sit in silence for a moment. A breeze blows through the square, bringing with it the smell of cut grass and maybe fried onions. The park's full of people, students sitting around on the grass with laptops and notebooks, or else sunbathing on discarded jackets. A girl nearby is picking out a sweet melody on a guitar, completely lost in her own world.

  
It's beautiful, Dan thinks. Maybe it's just the boost in vitamin D from sunlight exposure talking, but at that moment he feels so peaceful and so - so unbearably _fond_ of everyone and everything. The sun trails through the trees, leaves rustling in the breeze.

Somewhere, someone laughs, and for once it doesn't make him freeze up with anxiety. It's just people being happy, like they have a right to be.

  
And then there's Phil. The sun's catching him through the trees, bright spots of light on his forehead and his arm and his leg. He's been getting freckles in the good weather, same as Dan, and more than anything in that one second Dan wants to shuffle over there and kiss every single one.

  
He feels for a startling moment like he's watching a scene that he's separate to, like Phil's so perfect that he ought to be behind glass, like Dan's watching him on a screen, this unknown handsome man picking at a sandwich, lost in his thoughts.

  
"Hey," Dan says, softly, breaking the spell. Phil looks at him and he has crumbs stuck to the corner of his mouth. Grinning, Dan reaches across to brush them away. "Idiot."

  
He'd meant to say _I love you_. Sometimes it feels like the same thing.

  
"Loser," Phil says. His gaze is soft, and he reaches out to touch Dan's knee, just resting his fingers there on the black jeans that Dan had insisted upon wearing. "Nervous about tonight?"

  
Dan thinks about it.

  
"I mean, it's not about me," He says, thoughtfully. "I feel more like - like a dad or a big brother or something. I dunno." He pauses. "Maybe."

  
"Maybe," Phil repeats, smiling at him. "It's gonna be great. You should see the gallery, it looks stunning. I haven't seen it look so cool in a long time. Is their mum coming?"

  
Dan nods, eating more soup.

  
"Which is terrifying. Like, hi, yes, I am friends with your child. What if she looks at me and she can, like, sense all the laws we've broken together?"

  
"Stop," Phil says. "What did they tell her, anyway?"

  
"That the gallery contacted them wanting to feature their work after seeing it on Instagram," Dan says. "Safest bet so neither of us get arrested."

  
"You're not gonna get arrested, Jesus," Phil says. "It's gonna be awesome."

  
-

  
They've been planning it for months. It was Phil's idea, back in February, which makes Dan feel more than a little ashamed that he wasn't the one to suggest it. Phil had gone to PJ about presenting Nix's work at the gallery, as innovative examples of street art. PJ had said he thought it was a great idea, and it'd all sort of snowballed from there.

  
Nix had been thrilled when he'd asked them. It makes Dan smile to think about even now, how bright their eyes had been, how they'd stopped being deadpan for a little while and actually smiled, laughing in disbelief.

  
He hadn't expected them to agree, really. Their art was so good, so brilliant, that containing it within four walls seemed foolish - an overly ambitious endeavour. But they'd surprised him, the way they always do - digging out canvases and coming up with ideas, stuff way better than any of them could've thought up.

  
And now it's happening, it's actually happening, and Dan feels as fragile and nervous as an elderly relative, so full of pride he might burst.  
It makes the event more stressful than it might normally have been, somehow. 

  
Dan's attending as Phil's plus-one, which gets him out of wearing his ugly scratchy black tie in the muggy evening heat, but he still ends up nervously hovering on the edges of the room, fiddling with his cuffs and touching his trouser pocket to make sure his phone's still there, slipping it out to check his texts, see if Nix has contacted him.

  
When he's not doing that, he's stuck helplessly watching Phil across the room - effortlessly handsome with his sleeves rolled up, smiling and talking to people. He isn't looking at Dan but Dan feels connected to him somehow, even from far away, like there's a glimmering thread running between them, always.

  
"Hey, where's the wine," A voice says, and Dan turns to find PJ standing there, grinning at him.

  
"Oh, hi," Dan says, somewhat shyly. It's been a long while since that awkward cup of coffee, but sometimes when he sees PJ the memory hits him in the gut and it takes him a second to recover. "Over there, I think. I thought you never came to these things."

  
"Not never," PJ says, mildly. "Sometimes never. Almost never." He pauses. "To be honest, Phil's been sending me photos for weeks. Curiosity got to me. Is the artist here yet?"

  
"Not yet," Dan says, hoping his voice doesn't betray his nervousness that Nix might not show up at all. It'd be really cool of them, he thinks, to be the anonymous artist, but he also wants them to hear how amazed everyone is by their work in real time. So much of their art involves leaving it behind, usually at a run - they deserve to hear the praise.

  
"Well, let me know," PJ says, and pats him on the shoulder. "This stuff's amazing."

  
He wanders off in the direction of the wine. Dan gets exactly one second by himself when he's set upon by Peri and Em, her partner. They must've been hiding in the shadows somewhere for him not to have seen them until now.

  
"I didn't know you guys were gonna be here," He says, beaming, giving the two of them giant hugs.

  
"'Course we are," Peri says, grinning at him. "Had to take a look at what you get up to when you're not with us. Size up the competition."

  
Em rolls her eyes, slipping her arm through Peri's and holding on.

  
"Ignore her, it's not a competition."

  
"I know," Dan says. He feels someone touch his hand and just knows it's Phil without turning, leaning into him as automatic as breathing.

  
"Hi, guys," He says, brightly. "Dan didn't say you'd be here! D'you like it?"

  
"It's amazing," Em says, in a voice filled with wonder. She tugs on Peri's arm. "C'mon, I wanna look at that one over there."

  
Peri grins at the two of them, raising her eyebrows at the pair of them in a _what can you do_ kind of way, helplessly fond. The pair of them melt into the crowd. Dan just stands there, holding Phil's hand, breathing in amongst the chatter and low music.

  
"I got you something," Dan says, after a moment. Phil looks at him. "A surprise. It's upstairs."

  
"Oh," Phil says. "But - why? You didn't have to."

  
Dan shrugs, smiling.

  
"I just wanted to."

  
They're quiet for a moment.

  
"I didn't get you anything."

  
"Right, yeah," Dan says, laughing a little. "That's why they call it a surprise, Phil. It's where you don't know it's happening so you're, y'know. Surprised."

  
"Smart arse," Phil says, but he leans in close so his cheek touches Dan's, his breath warm and comforting there. Dan closes his eyes for a second and breathes in the way he smells, clean washing and aftershave. "Oh, wait, here they are."

  
Dan turns in time to see Nix arriving with their mum. They're wearing a suit - of course they are. They're definitely the coolest person Dan knows - and their mum is wearing a bright blue dress, her hair just as curly as theirs. It'd been Dan's vague sort of plan to go over there and introduce himself, like ripping the plaster off, getting it out of the way before his nerves can get the better of him.

  
But he immediately realises that he isn't gonna do that. Maybe he'll talk to her later - in fact he probably will - but standing there with Phil he sees the way her face lights up when she sees the first of Nix's paintings. Dan can see them in her expressive eyebrows and the way she gestures, and he feels so fond all of a sudden that he has to look away for a second.

  
"She's so proud," Phil says, softly, voice a little hoarse.

  
"Yeah," Dan says.

  
Without saying a word, Phil moves so he can put his arm around him. Dan rests his head on Phil's shoulder and blinks and watches the delight in Nix's mums eyes as she sees the beautiful world they've created.

  
-

  
"This is awesome," Dan says, later, finally catching Nix when they're alone, their mum having slipped off to the bathroom. He hands them a little glass of lemonade and they roll their eyes but take it anyway. "You're awesome."

  
"I've been told that before," Nix says, deadpan, but there's an amused glint in their eyes.

  
Dan grins.

  
"You know, you can put this on your uni applications and all sorts. And PJ loves it - he - he's the guy who owns the gallery, he thinks it's awesome too. I bet he'd want you to do other shows, d'you want me to-"

  
"Stop, stop," Nix says, and they're laughing. "You sound like my mum only worse, oh my God."

  
They're quiet for a second.

  
"What happens now?" Nix asks. Dan looks at them, frowning a little. "Well, you got the guy. You're, like, stupid in love. I got - I got this." He gestures around them, at all the people all dolled up in smart-casual attire, drinking wine against a backdrop of Nix's artwork, canvases and photographs. "So, like. Is that it? We don't - we don't do it anymore?"

  
Running around the street at night, free as birds, scraped knees and paint-stained fingers, breathless choked-up laughter as they take refuge down alleyways, painting their feelings in dripping, foot-high letters...

  
Dan blinks.

  
"Oh," He says. That hadn't been what he'd expected them to say. "Oh, I - do you want to stop?"

  
"I mean, I won't," Nix says, decisiveness at odds with the way they hesitate before they speak. "I'd miss it too much. But you-"

  
"I'd miss it too much, too," Dan says. Nix exhales, something like relief in their breath, and the pair of them grin at each other, conspiratorial. "Wait, wait - stupid in love, you said. What, you think I only did any of it to - to get Phil?"

  
"No," Nix says. "But, like. How much yearning can a guy have left, you know?"

  
"Stop," Dan says. "I feel really seen and I hate it."

  
"Stupid in love," Nix repeats, sagely, nodding. "Did you show him the surprise yet?"

  
"Nope."

  
"Well, he'd better appreciate it," Nix grumbles, but there's no real heat behind it. "I've never spent so much time on Instagram before, and I'm, like, the target audience."

  
"I said I'd be able to find them myself-"

  
"Right, by which point it would've been a Christmas gift," Nix says, laughing at him. "Face it, old man."

  
Dan flips them off, just as their mum appears through the crowd, weaving her way back over to them.

  
"I'm just gonna - Phil."

  
"You're lame," Nix says, as he's walking away. "She doesn't bite, y'know."

  
Dan just grins to himself, ducking around people as he crosses the gallery, about to fish his phone out of his pocket when -

  
"Woah, hey, hey," Phil says, catching hold of him right before they bash into each other. "Where's the fire?"

  
"I was looking for you," Dan says, half-laughing, touching Phil's shoulders just because he can. "Hi."

  
"Hey," Phil says, softly. "Is this where you tell me what the surprise is?"

  
"No," Dan says, and hugs him. He can’t _not_ , somehow.

  
"You're gonna have to tell me eventually," Phil says, not letting him go.

  
Dan pulls back, and grins.

  
"I dunno. I think it can wait. Maybe even 'til Christmas, like -" He stops, laughing at the look on Phil's face. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I wouldn't."

  
Phil kisses him then, soft and quick, barely a peck but just enough.

  
"Yeah, you would," He says, grinning.

  
"Yeah I would," Dan says, and laughs, feeling lighter than air.

  
-

  
Later, they stand in the kitchen in their pyjamas. Dan's making herbal tea and Phil's helping - if eating cereal straight out of the packet and occasionally kissing Dan on the cheek can be considered helping.

  
"Save some of that for tomorrow," Dan tells him, mildly.

  
"I'll go to the shop in the morning."

  
"You won't," Dan says, giving him a pointed look as he stirs their tea. "You'll forget you ate it and then make toast instead. And you won't put the bowl back. Or shut the cupboard door."

  
"Entirely possible," Phil says, and smiles at him, fingers brushing his arm clumsily. "You love me, though."

  
"Only just," Dan says, with mock-aloofness that dissolves the second that Phil coaxes him into his arms for a kiss.

  
"So about that surprise," Phil says, a little while later, in the space between their lips.

  
Dan's laugh is nothing more than a breath as he rolls his eyes and extricates himself, turning back to their steaming cups of tea.

  
"Put the cereal back and I'll give it to you," He says, taking a sip of his tea. "But I feel like I overhyped it though, like - it's not that good. Or even exciting."

  
"Says you," Phil says, putting the cereal back and shutting the cupboard door, pointedly. "Hey. Did you paint me like one of your French girls?"

  
He waggles his eyebrows as he says it, laughing, and Dan laughs too because he can't help it.

  
"No, Jesus Christ. Just. Wait, I'll get it."

  
He fishes it out from under the bed, heartbeat quickening, much to Phil's amusement.

  
"Under the _bed_? Dan, there are _spiders_ under there."

  
"Shut up shut up shut up," Dan sing-songs, all in one breath, absolutely not thinking about spiders as he emerges, pulling the photo frame with him. "Forgot how big it was-"

  
"That's what she said," Phil says, automatically, coming over to help him. Between the two of them they get the frame out and resting on the bed. "Oh."

  
"I told you, overhyped," Dan says, quickly. "I just - they were all for you, and - and it occurred to me that you hadn't seen a lot of them and I - well, I wanted you to. And - and Nix helped me find a lot of them, they'd been posted on Instagram and stuff, like - that's why they're so nice, 'cause people who can actually take photos took them. I asked for permission to use them, like, I'm not an arsehole-"

  
"Dan," Phil says, softly, and slips an arm around his waist. His eyes are too shiny, smile bright and wide. "It's perfect. Stop, it's - it's really perfect."

  
He and Nix had found as many photos of Dan's graffiti as they could - on tumblr pages and Instagram, where they couldn't just go out and take photos themselves. All of Dan's little declarations of love that he'd scattered across the city in secret, brought together in the biggest picture frame Dan could find - a collage of paint-spotted devotion.  
Phil reaches out and touches a wondering hand to one photo, fingerprints on the glass. _i want you to know me_ , and a heart, in dripping pink. Dan's eyes catch on the other photographs, a whirlwind of memory, of a thousand cold and rainy nights, scraped knees and numb fingers, warm inside with the thought of Phil.

  
"This is too much," Phil says, quietly, after the longest moment. He's still holding onto Dan, and Dan leans in and rests his head on his shoulder, just breathing.

  
"It's just enough. Just pictures, really."

  
"Shut up, oh my God," Phil says. "You painted all these. All of them."

  
"Right, yeah," Dan says. "Someone call the Louvre. It's hardly high art, Phil."

  
"I love it.”

  
There’s so much heartfelt sincerity in his tone that all of Dan's self deprecating comments die in his throat.

  
“Well, good,” He says, feeling flustered and weird, like he just showed Phil his diary.

  
Phil twists against him and hugs him then, tight and close, a hand cupping the back of Dan's head like it’s something unutterably precious. Like _he_ is.

  
“God, your birthday’s literally ten seconds away and now I have to get a better gift than this,” Phil says, voice muffled.

  
Dan laughs, shaking the pair of them.

  
“It’s not a competition.”

  
“If it was you’d win.”

  
He pulls back a little, looking at the photos, eyes darting from one to the next. Dan just watches him, smiling so hard his face aches a little.

  
“So you like it, then.”

  
“I love it,” Phil says. “God, you’re so daft.”

  
“You love me, though.”

  
“Yeah,” Phil says. There’s the brightness of a smile in his eyes. “Yeah, I really do.”

  
“That’s alright then,” Dan says, and kisses him.


End file.
